Gamo Sadahide's Servant, Toki Motosada, Hurling a Demon King to the Ground at Mount Inahana, from the series "New Forms of Thirty-Six Ghosts (Shinkei sanjuroku kaisen)"
Medium
Color woodblock print
Classification
woodblock print
Department
Arts of Asia
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
196865
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
A samurai in a blue robe and full armor battles a large demon with red skin whom he has managed to pin to the ground, while a smiling Buddha statue looks on with approval. This print apparently illustrates an obscure legend, according to which the warrior had previously learned of strange happenings at a temple in Kai Province, where he had set up camp for the night. When he went to investigate, he encountered a group of spirits and goblins, the largest of which was in the form of a temple guard...
About the Artist
Tsukioka Yoshitoshi · 1839–1892
Tsukioka Yoshitoshi was born on April 30, 1839, in the Shimbashi district of Edo, the city that would become Tokyo. At the age of eleven he was apprenticed to Utagawa Kuniyoshi, one of the great masters of the Japanese woodblock print, who gave the boy the artist name 'Yoshitoshi' as a mark of lineage within the Utagawa School. From Kuniyoshi, Yoshitoshi absorbed the full tradition of ukiyo-e — th...