vistas down streets; views along the s River that runs through Edo; enclosed gardens; and the interiors of theatres and restaurants. Not only the perspective system itself but in some cases also the style and subject matter of perspective pictures' derived from European sources. In the 177os and 178os, for example, prints were even issued depicting Venetian canals and the Serpentine in London. When these artists depicted famous places' in Edoitself they often imbued them with a European flavour; for example, Toyoharu's Floating picture of enjoying the evening cool near Eitai Bridge, Fukagawa see opposite. recalls European artists' views of Venice. The sharply receding spa in these prints is filled with much incidental detail, but few of them succeed in conveying any specific atmosphere of the scene, such as the time of day, the weather or the season. They may be studied for the information they record but they do not engage the viewer emotionally. Their importance lies elsewhere, for they represent a complete change in vision, a break with traditional approaches to ordering space in pictures. Previously in Japanese art it was most common to tilt the ground plane upwards and to indicate recession by placing objects higher up in the picture. The assimilation of basic European principles of perspective was a vital prerequisite for the emergence of a distinctive ukiyo-e genre of cityscapes and landscapes.