Onoe Kikugorō V as the Hag of Asajigahara
Medium
Color woodblock prints; ōban triptych
Dimensions
36.2 × 74.1 cm (14 5/16 × 29 3/16 in.)
Classification
woodblock print
Department
Arts of Asia
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
100477
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
This image from the play The Lonely House shows a wicked hag preparing to murder a houseguest. She inadvertently kills her own daughter instead and, in shame and deep despair, repents her evil life. She ultimately attains Buddhahood through the grace of a bodhisattva—an enlightened person who delays nirvana to assist others—named Kannon. The flowers and vines in this scene stand out against the eerie deep blackness surrounding the pale-skinned witch. The poem on the print reads, “Through the yū...
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...