 He called Utamaro "one of the world's artists for the intrinsic qualities of his genius" and "the greatest of all the figure-designers" in ukiyo-e, with a "far greater resource of composition" than his peers and an "endless" capacity for "unexpected invention".James A. Michener re-evaluated the development of ukiyo-e in "The Floating World" of 1954, in which he places the 1790s as "the culminating years of ukiyo-e", when "Utamaro brought the grace of Sukenobu to its apex".