Tsukio-e master Yoshitoshi (1839-1892) played a pivotal role in the history of Japanese ukiyo-e, especially as his career coincided with one of the most dramatic eras in the history of Japan. Yoshitoshi was born in Edo, where he studied under the great ukiyo-e master Utagawa Kuniyoshi and saw the gradual evolution of the visual expression of the late Edo period and Meiji era. Thus, his painting style is a curious mix of an older artistic tradition and the fast-changing modern Japan. Yoshitoshi is most renowned for his portrayals of violence, warriors, ghosts, and historical scenes, but his repertoire was much wider. He explored subjects from contemporary events, everyday life, women, literature, mythology, and traditional Japanese legends. He was especially committed to his subjects, which is what makes his work so unique. His figures are frequently psychological in tone, and his bold compositions and emotive colour palette lend an uneasy sense of movement and feeling to even familiar stories. Concurrently, Yoshitoshi continued to be strongly linked to ukiyo-e culture as Western influences and new technologies entered Japanese visual culture. The continuity of woodblock printing is not the sole aspect of his career, however—he more importantly adapted the technique to a changing society and provided an important avenue for the understanding of the endurance and change of ukiyo-e in nineteenth-century Japan.
Early Life
Born in Edo (Tokyo) on 30 April 1839, towards the end of the Tokugawa shogunate, Tsukioka Yoshitoshi had to wait a long time for his career to take off. He was born Yonejirō, and lived in a period when Japanese society remained very anchored in Edo Japan, yet on the brink of great political and social change. His father, Owariya Kinzaburō, was a successful merchant who had been granted samurai rank, thus putting Yoshitoshi’s family in a world of shifting social classes in the nineteenth century Edo period. Yoshitoshi was from an early age interested in drawing, and this then led him in the direction of ukiyo-e. When he was approximately 11 years old, he went to the studio of Utagawa Kuniyoshi, one of the greatest ukiyo-e artists of late Edo Japan. It was a contribution to his artistic life that would prove significant from an apprenticeship. These characteristics were seen in Yoshitoshi early on, and are most prominent in his dynamic warrior prints, imaginative compositions, and unusual subjects, of which Kuniyoshi was also particularly renowned. Yoshitoshi learned art and print design from his master, and acquainted himself with the graphic language of the Utagawa school. He was also introduced to the historical and legendary themes which were the focus of Kuniyoshi’s work. His first known print dates back to 1853, and already showed this training. So Yoshitoshi’s formative years were not only spent in the acquisition of technical abilities, but also involved in strengthening his association with the ukiyo-e tradition, which in turn would spur him to pursue the tradition in his unique style.
Influences
Japan’s traditional artistic training and individual artists alongside the fast-evolving visual culture of the nineteenth century influenced Yoshitoshi’s artistic development. His teacher, Utagawa Kuniyoshi, whom he frequented in his studio in 1850, had the greatest impact on his early work. The activity of Kuniyoshi’s compositions, the dramatic scenes of warriors, and the scenes of the supernatural and expressive figures were an important foundation for Yoshitoshi, and their influence can still be seen in his career. Yoshitoshi didn’t just copy his master’s style, though. Over time, he took on a more personal style, especially with regard to the expression of emotions and psychology of his figures. The other had to do with historical painter Kikuchi Yōsai, whose monochrome paintings and drawings of historical personalities inspired Yoshitoshi to pay more attention to realism and character in the subject matter of paintings and drawings based on historical figures. This influence was strongly felt from the 1870s, with Yoshitoshi’s increasing focus on a more sober and realistic depiction of historical scenes. Meanwhile, Japan’s opening and the resulting political transformations of the Meiji era introduced him to new ideas in art from Europe. Yoshitoshi was introduced to a variety of techniques through Kuniyoshi’s interest in European prints, one of which was the use of perspective, shading and a more personalised approach to depicting the subject. These did not supplant the traditional ukiyo-e techniques he had inherited, but rather he seamlessly incorporated the tradition of Japanese woodblock printing. Another great influence was the changing society surrounding him. The Tokugawa shogunate, the Meiji Restoration and the swift assimilation of Western technologies and ideas were all witnessed by Yoshitoshi. His art was thus created in a continual struggle between old and new. He was initially fascinated by Western influences, but gradually became concerned with the loss of the traditional Japanese arts culture. This opposition of adaptation and preservation was going to become one of the most salient features of his maturing art.
Artistic Journey
Yoshitoshi’s art career was intricately tied to the significant changes in Japan during his lifetime. He began to make his mark on the ukiyo-e tradition in his early work, and was already acknowledged by the 1860s for his brave compositions, scenes of warriors, historical themes, and his increasingly violent imagery. During the last few years of the Tokugawa period, the instability and passion for violence of the time are reflected in works like Twenty-Eight Famous Murders with Verse, and it is evident that Yoshitoshi was becoming more than a stylistic successor to Kuniyoshi. The artist was faced with a new setting in 1868, when the Meiji Restoration took place. At this time, Yoshitoshi was employed in an evolving visual environment as Japan rapidly modernised, and newspapers, photography and lithography were starting to compete with the traditional woodblock print. Commissions were near their lowest ebb, and he had a trying personal time in the early 1870s, which affected his career. This setback was also an important turning point, however. He had a new opportunity to comment on current events through newspaper commissions, and gradually came to master a more personal, psychologically attuned style. Instead of just graphic violence, he began to focus more and more on the tension before an action took place, and the emotion left over after the action. In the 1880s Yoshitoshi was at the peak of his productivity and success. His compositions became more controlled, expressive, and visually sophisticated, following a traditional Japanese style; they were sometimes graded and perspectival, often rich in colour and dramatic in movement. Later on, he began to explore the theme of history, literature, folklore, and cultural memory of Japan in his series such as One Hundred Aspects of the Moon (1885-1892). Yoshitoshi’s remarkable journey is not only in enduring a time of change in art but in constantly changing, yet never giving up on the tradition he was born into.
Themes
The themes of Yoshitoshi’s prints were very diverse, and this diversity is significant in the sense that his reputation has tended to be defined by his violent and supernatural prints. He was interested in history, literature, theatre, folklore, women, and everyday life, which enabled him to delve into the dramatic and the less dramatic aspects of human experience. Warriors and brave acts continued to be a recurring theme in his work, as is evident in A Celebration of Gallantry, where actors are dressed up as tattooed firemen. The series features a mix of action and heroism in kabuki performances and the captivating aesthetics of the costumes and tattoos worn by the firemen. In Thirty-six Biographies of Modern Men, Yoshitoshi also concentrated on men of his time, with men who are known for their courage, conflict, and unusual lives. In New Forms of the Thirty-six Ghosts, his interest in the supernatural seems to be stronger. He normally associated ghosts with stories of revenge, suffering, and moral consequences rather than just fearsome creatures. The ghost of Taira no Tomomori, for instance, shows up on the waves of Daimotsu Bay, making the landscape itself an unsettling reminder of the tragedy of his life. Yoshitoshi’s interest in women and ordinary feelings was also quite subdued. Thirty-two Aspects of Customs and Manners showcases women across social classes and time, highlighting expressions like embarrassment, amusement, discomfort, or elegance. Looking Smoky: A Married Woman of the Kyowa Period is a moment captured in a strange way; a moment so common that a woman is reacting to smoke, but so deeply personal that her narrowed eyes and tense expression make the moment feel strangely personal. The most extensive treatment of these interests is in One Hundred Aspects of the Moon. The moon becomes the thread through the hundred prints, linking Japanese and Chinese history, literature, mythology, theatre and life. In the composition Moon and Smoke, for example, a fireman faces the smoke of a burning Tokyo, morphing an ordinary scene into a dramatic one of courage and motion. Mount Yoshino Midnight-Moon: Iga no Tsubone, on the contrary, is a much more subdued scene of isolation and reflection; the moon itself creates a much quieter ambiance in this scene. This series of paintings demonstrates Yoshitoshi’s desire to show more than just action, but the feelings that accompany it – fear, courage, longing, grief, beauty and wonder. His themes continually switch back and forth between the spectacular and the ordinary, giving his work a sense of deep tradition in Japanese culture and surprising humanity.
Impact
Yoshitoshi’s achievement is in his ability to communicate with changing times and a changing society in ukiyo-e. It is said to be one of the last great masters of the tradition, who did not just uphold the older language of Japanese woodblock printing, but rather pushed it into a more individual, psychological, and modern direction. Today his paintings are featured in the British Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago (with over forty of his works), the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and elsewhere. His prints are thus no longer tied to the history of nineteenth-century Japan, but rather to the history of printmaking in general. They also continue to have a strong presence in the art market. In 2007, a collection of his Twelve Aspects of the Moon paintings, which were made in response to his notorious print series, went under-offer at Christie’s New York for $241,000, well in excess of its admitted estimate of $150,000–200,000. But this is just one measure of his ongoing relevance. The special quality of Yoshitoshi’s pictures today is that they can convey without the viewer having to be acquainted with all the history behind them. His warriors talk of courage and conflict, his ghosts of fear, memory and consequence, his women open up their deepest emotions in the smallest gestures, the changing landscapes and the contemporary scenes talk about a society negotiating modernity. Although the stories in Even One Hundred Aspects of the Moon are based on history, literature and legend, it doesn’t feel like a remote storybook, but more like a book on human experiences that continue to exist. That’s why all of Yoshitoshi’s pictures appear to be on their own. Fear is what drives the violence, vulnerability is what fuels the heroism, and impermanence is what fuels the beauty. Yoshitoshi’s paintings are timeless not only because of their subject matter, which is still so present in this fast-changing world, but because they remind us that change does not wipe away the past; it alters our perception and memory of it. His legacy, in addition to being the final great ukiyo-e master, is being an artist who used a traditional medium to create a personal means of expression for human emotion.