General Tamichi, from the series A Mirror of Famous Japanese Generals
Medium
Color woodblock print; oban
Dimensions
35.5 × 23.4 cm (14 × 9 3/16 in.)
Classification
woodblock print
Department
Arts of Asia
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
102077
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
This print depicts the ghost of Tamichi, a 4th-century hero who had been buried near Japan’s northern frontier. During a raid tribes tried to loot his tomb, only to find that it was protected by a giant poisonous snake. Known for his prints of historical figures, wars, legends, and social customs, Tsukioka Yoshitoshi is often considered the last master of ukiyo-e (pictures of the floating world), a Japanese art style that flourished from the 17th to the 19th centuries. He produced his first sig...
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...