Onogawa - Tsukioka Yoshitoshi

A striking woodblock print by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi from the 'One Hundred Ghost Stories' series, featuring the sumo wrestler Onogawa.

This woodblock print by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi depicts the sumo wrestler Onogawa Kisaburo. It belongs to the series 'Wakan Hyaku Monogatari' (One Hundred Ghost Stories from China and Japan). Yoshitoshi, a student of Kuniyoshi, produced this work during the final years of the Edo period. The composition captures the wrestler in a moment of quiet reflection, seated with a pipe in hand. A supernatural element, a smoke-like apparition resembling a demonic face, drifts from the pipe, blending the mundane act of smoking with the eerie folklore themes common in Yoshitoshi's output.

The print demonstrates the artist's ability to balance traditional ukiyo-e aesthetics with a personal, often unsettling, psychological depth. The figure of Onogawa is rendered with muscular definition, contrasting with the fluid, ethereal form of the spirit above him. The use of colour is deliberate, with deep blues and reds providing a structured frame for the central figure. The inclusion of a cartouche in the upper right corner, containing text related to the ghost story, is a standard feature of the series, providing narrative context for the visual scene. Yoshitoshi's work from this period reflects the transition of Japanese art as it moved towards the Meiji era, maintaining the technical precision of woodblock printing while exploring darker, more imaginative subject matter. The print is a representative example of the 'muzan-e' or 'cruel pictures' style that Yoshitoshi helped to popularise, though here the tone remains more atmospheric than overtly violent. The clean lines and flat colour application are characteristic of the medium, allowing the viewer to focus on the interplay between the human subject and the spectral presence.