Tsukioka Yoshitoshi

The two top ukiyo-e prints of Yoshitoshi are from his final series of works, entitled "One Hundred Aspects of the Moon". This series is full of famous places and events from Japan's long history. The first picture is taken from the famous Kabuki plav "The Fourty-Seven Ronin". The story tells of how fourty-seven loyal samurai in the Tokugawa period took revenge for the death of their lord. The samurai used a certain tea house in the Gion district of Kyoto as their meeting place. The samurai in this picture is the son of the group's leader. The young samurai is is standing outside of the teahouse, and is tapping his katana lightly against his scabbard to let the others know that he has come. The second picture also takes place in Kyoto. It shows a young geisha cooling off by the Kamo River during the hot summer months. The bottom print demonstrates Yoshitoshi's radical use of form and composition. His prints were highly advanced works of art, which broke new ground in both ukiyo-e and Japanese art in general. Yoshitoshi was truly the last great ukiyo-e master of Japan. By studying his works, I have been able to gain a wide range of knowledge not only of Japanese history, but of Japanese cultural and artistic aesthetics.