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.

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