ntended to be
dense black in the finished print are printed first a flat grey by the
key-block, and are then printed a full black from a colour-block like
any other patch of colour, the double printing being necessary to give
the intensity of the black.

Although several modern prints have been designed on other principles,
and sometimes a coloured key-block is successfully used, yet the
convention adopted by the Japanese is the simplest and most fundamental
of all. Outside its safe limitations the technical difficulties are
increased, and one is led to make compromises that strain the proper
resources of block printing and are of doubtful advantage.

The temptation to use colour with the key-block comes when one attempts
to use the key-block for rendering light and shadow. Its use by the
Japanese masters was generally for the descriptive expression of the
contours of objects, ignoring entirely their shadows, or any effects of
light and shade, unless a shadow happened occasionally to be an
important part of the pattern of the design. Generally, as in nearly all
the landscape prints by Hiroshige, the line is descriptive or suggestive
of essential form, not of effects in light and shade.

If the key-block is used for light and shade, the question of relative
tones and values of shadows arises, and these will be falsified unless a
key-block is made for each separate plane or part of the design, and
then there is danger of confusion or of compromises that are beyond the
true scope of the work.

It is generally safest to print the key-block in a tone that blends with
the general tone of the print, and not to use it as a part of the
colour pattern. It serves mainly to control the form, leaving the
colour-blocks to give the colour pattern. There are cases, of course,
where no rule holds good, and sometimes a design may successfully omit
the key-block altogether, using only a few silhouettes of colour, one of
which controls the main form of the print, and serves as key-block.
Frequently, also, the key-block may be used to give the interior form or
character of part of a design, leaving the shape of a colour-block to
express the outside shape or contour; as in the spots suggesting foliage
in the print on page 114. The shapes of the tree forms are partly left
to the colour-block to complete, the key only giving the suggestion of
the general broken character of the foliage, not the outside limits of
the branches. The outer sha