How does this encounter make you feel?
A skeleton spectre confronts the emperor’s representative
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Bright emotions
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Quiet emotions
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Heavy emotions
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Sombre emotions
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A skeleton spectre confronts the emperor’s representative
Date
c. 1844
Description
Creator of the image: Utagawa Kuniyoshi
Date of the image creation: c. 1844
Medium: Woodblock print
Person depicted: Mitsukuni and his assistant
This stunning woodblock print was created by Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1797–1861), one of the last masters of the Japanese style ukiyo-e style printmaking. Kuniyoshi was a member of the Utagawa school and was known for incorporating aspects of Western tradition into his work, notably caricature. He was known to have painted and carved a very diverse array of subjects, including samurai champions and Kabuki actors, landscapes and beautiful women, animals and monsters.
This image shows most of the right and centre panels of a three-part triptych called ‘Takiyasha the Witch and the Skeleton Spectre’. It is set within historical events in which the samurai Taira no Masakado lead a rebellion against the government in Kyoto, conquering land and beginning to set up an new kingdom. This picture depicts a scene from this era when Mitsukuni — a representative of the government in Kyoto — came to visit Masakado in his palace in S?ma. The emperor’s representative is met by Masakado’s daughter, the sorcerer-princess Takiyasha, who summons skeletal spectre to frighten them. In Kuniyoshi’s depiction, the princess is in the left panel, and is thus not seen in our cropped version. She reads a spell from a scroll, incanting a conjuration which brings for the giant skeleton from the void. The apparition tears through the palace blinds and leers down at Mitsukuni and his assistant with its empty sockets. The rebellion was put down by force and Masakado was killed in 939. After his kingdom was retaken by the imperial forces of Kyoto princess Takiyasha was said to continue living within the ruins of the palace of S?ma.
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