The Ghost by Yoshoshiti, 1886

One of the extraordinary number of Edo woodblock artists in the mid-19th century, Yoshoshiti was the most haunted of them all and, in fact, would die insane. In the latter period of his life, perhaps to exorcise his own demons, he did a series of "ghost" paintings that are extraordinarily evocative not only of his art, but of Japan in this difficult period.

Yoshitoshi, in spite of a lifetime battle with depression, was the last great ukiyo-e (“pictures of the floating world”)artist of Japan. His career began in the old tradition of Japanese woodblock printing and ended with a westernized, mass-production Japan with very different values, but he remained loyal to the tradition even while he pushed it into new areas of color and emotion.

Tsukioka Sessai (whose artistic name would be Yoshitoshi) was born in Shinbashi in 1839, the son of a merchant. At age 11, his uncle enrolled him as a live-in student at the famous school of Kuniyoshi in Edo, where he was given the name Yoshitoshi. At age 14, he published his first print – a triptych of a naval battle. At age 19, after the death of Kuniyoshi, Yoshitoshi was talented enough to support himself by designing woodblock prints of famous actors of his own day. He then developed historical and heroic subjects in the late 1860’s, a politically tense and challenging time for all the Edo artists due to political events and the war of 1867-68.

Even in his youth, there was a dark side to Yoshitoshi’s prints, and bloody violence was clearly shown in a tradition that was popular in Japan since the early 19th century. One of Yoshitoshi’s earlier series of prints was known as “28 Murders with Verse,” and used graphic violence and strong, almost slashing color and design. During the 1867-68 war, Yoshitoshi’s most graphic, violent prints followed political events. They were precisely what his audience wanted to see – perhaps as a way of exorcising the violence of the times. However, even today, Yoshitoshi’s work is sometimes dismissed based on the violence of a few of his prints, when the body of his work (particularly his later designs) is far more delicate and psychologically sensitive. The violence in Yoshitoshi’s earlier prints, however, does resonate, based on his ongoing struggles with depression and even mental illness. Apparently from a very young age, the artist suffered from severe depression and problems controlling his temper. When just 30, his work among the stupendous talents of his own contemporaries was ranked fourth in popularity by an Edo newspaper, but his successes were followed by his first breakdown, which occurred in the early 1870’s. He recovered to design prints for a Tokyo newspaper and continued to struggle financially. A successful series of historical prints in the late 1870’s helped him financially to escape his creditors. Completed in 1880, Yoshitoshi’s series “Mirror of Famous Generals of Japan” was not only a popular but a critical success, as his prints made strong use of both line and primary color. There was an energy, an emotional investment, in his prints which was new and energized an older tradition.

Yoshitoshi had reached enough critical success by 1880 that other artists were beginning to copy his style. He produced many series of prints, and a large number of triptychs, many of great merit. Two of his three best-known series, the One Hundred Aspects of the Moon and Thirty-Six Ghosts, contain numerous masterpieces. The third, Thirty-Two Aspects of Customs and Manners, was for many years the most highly regarded of his work. These, and other series such as Famous Generals of Japan, A Collection of Desires, New Selection of Eastern Brocade Pictures, and Lives of Modern People, finally brought him some financial stability. He finally was able to move to a larger house in Nezu, met and married a former Geisha, Sakamaki Taiko (who already had two small children), and began to teach. He usually had six or seven full-time students living with him, plus any number of day students. Although the general house atmosphere was friendly enough, Yoshitoshi was known to be volatile and moody and capable of savage criticism of his students.

Between 1882 and 1886, Yoshitoshi worked for three different newspapers and a publisher, Akiyama Buemon, commissioned him to develop his painting of Fujiwara no Yasuwase playing the flute into a triptych design. The print, published in 1883, is considered to be Yoshitoshi’s masterpiece. He received commissions for “One Hundred Aspects of the Moon,” a series beginning in 1885 and continuing for six years. In the 1880’s, Yoshitoshi produced designs for more than 100 illustrated books and became the most influential book illustrator of the Meiji period. Other important works included “Thirty-Two Aspects of Women” and “One Hundred Warriors.”

There is a haunting quality to Yoshitoshi’s later works, where the strong colors and line of his earlier prints now assumes a subtler and every other-worldly tone. For example, his “100 Views of the Moon” series tell a story with every print: sometimes pathetic, sometimes haunting, always based on Japanese history or legend. Below, Mount Yoshino Midnight Moon tells the legend of the brave Lady Iga no Tsubone, a court lady with the exiled emperor Go-Daigo, who finds his temporary court in the Yoshino Mountains haunted by the ghost of a long-dead courtier. In this print, Lady Iga is exorcising the unhappy spirit of the courtier, Sasaki no Kiyotaka, under a full but heavily clouded moon. The courtier, an advisor to the Emperor, had been forced to commit suicide in the 1300s, but the lady is withstanding and bringing peace to the angry spirit. Since this print dates from 1886, it makes perfect sense that the “Ghosts” series to follow was the last major achievement of Yoshitoshi’s artistic career.

Sadly, in 1888, Yoshitoshi’s home was robbed. Not only were many of his paintings and prints stolen, but nearly two thousand Yen – a very large sum of money at the time, and most of Yoshitoshi’s savings – was also taken. Apparently this serious setback led to another attack of severe depression – Yoshitoshi, nearly 60, was in increasingly poor health and was having sight problems – and for two years he was mentally unstable. In spite of this, or perhaps because of it, his haunting print series known as “Thirty-Six Ghosts,” the last major series of his artistic life, contained some of his best work. By 1891, Yoshitoshi’s mental breakdown worsened and he was incarcerated in the first of several mental hospitals. In very poor health, he was discharged in 1892 to a rented house in Honjo, where he died, three weeks later, from a cerebral hemorrhage. There is a natural caesura to the centuries-long tradition of ukiyo-e printmaking after the death of Yoshitoshi. The great ukiyo-e woodblock artists of Edo were part of an older Japan, and mass production and Western influences were naturally leading to the decline of ukiyo-e as a popular art form. Yet Yoshitoshi managed, almost alone, to keep the tradition vibrantly alive generations after earlier masters like Hokusai, and to create prints that, in their increasing subtlety, are recognized as master works today. His lifelong struggles with severe depression, like those of Van Gosh, can only increase our respect for his courage as well as his art.

SOURCES:

100 Views of the Moon: The Complete Series Online

Fukami Jikyu: The RIJks Museum

Castle Fine Arts: Artist Biographies