Tsukioka Yoshitoshi, the last master of Ukiyo-e, a type of Japanese wood block printing. Tsukioka Yoshitoshi was widely known for his unique artworks, which captured everyday beauty without beautifying it, intimate psychological behaviour through bold brushwork and colours.
Katsuma Gengobei reading a blood stained letter produced in 1866 was the #4 print of the series of 28 famous Murders with Verse. This series features 14 art pieces by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi and the remaining 14 by his contemporary Yoshi-iku. This particular series is one of the earlier works and being born during the time of turmoil, Tsukioka Yoshitoshi produced this series during the end of Tokugawa shogunate and the Meiji Restoration.
The woodblock print itself features a man- Katsuma, reading a letter/poem of his lover Kikuno murdered by him in a rage. Katsuma believed that Kikuno betrayed him with a thief. The painting portrays tense and troubled thoughts after the tragic incident and emotions. Katsuma reads blood stained letter with lower gaze , furrowed brows and tightly crossed arms which convey a restrained emotional response. This further suggests anxiety and grief rather than pure regret after killing his lover.
Tsukioka Yoshitoshi was famous for evoking strong feelings within the viewer through uncanny portrayal of scenes he drew. The composition also depicts a blood stained object which is often considered as a head of his lover.
Katsuma Gengobei reading a blood-stained letter was produced through woodblock on paper with ink and colours. It features a real incident of late 18th Century shown in Japanese plays. Tsukioka Yoshitoshi’s artwork is often seen as an attempt of keeping the Japanese culture alive. The two eras he survived, led him through several phases which shows in his artwork. 28 Murder with Verses is considered as one of the most bloodiest and most violent series also known as Bloody Prints. The painting connect to mass viewers of 21st century as as resonates with them because it taps with emotions like jealousy, remorse and destructive consequences of unchecked emotions.
Yoshitoshi transforms melodrama into psychological theatre. Rather than illustrating violence directly, he fixes attention on its aftermath: the murderer sits in a posture of inward collapse, surrounded by the mute evidence of irreversible action. The blood-stained letter becomes both narrative device and moral indictment, a physical trace of passion turned fatal. The sparse interior, the discarded sword, and the figure’s tightly folded body create an atmosphere of suffocating restraint, where remorse and suspicion seem to harden into silence. In this sense, the print is less about spectacle than about the corrosive afterlife of jealousy. Yoshitoshi renders violence not as action, but as a mind unable to escape what it has done.
