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Yoshitoshi Taiso (1839-1892)
Yoshitoshi, who is generally considered the last great master of the traditional Ukiyo-e woodblock print tradition, was born in Edo, in 1839. His father was a rich merchant who had been adopted by a samurai family, although Yoshitoshi was grown, since he was three years old, by an uncle. His real name was Owariya Yonejiro, and he received the name of Yoshitoshi from his master Kuniyoshi, with whom he studied since the age of eleven.
His first known print is dated from 1853, but is work only gains some expression from 1862 onwards. He started by creating actor portraits, and from this time dates his friendship with Ichikawa Danjuro IX and Onoe Kikugoro V, the great figures of Kabuki theater in the second half of the nineteen century.
He lived in very unstable times, and the work of Yoshitoshi fully reflects this instability, mainly in the period from 1866 to 1878, when he creates several prints of great violence such as the ones in the series "36 murders with verse" e "Selection of 100 warriors". One of the consequences of this instability and violence that characterized the times after the arrival of westerns and until the consolidation of the new Meiji power was, due to the heightened sensibility of Yoshitoshi, the depressive state he suffered on and off until his death.
The final years of Yoshitoshi life are the most prolific, and it is then that he published his greatest masterpieces, such as the "One hundred aspects of the moon" (1885-1892) and the "Thirty Six ghosts" (1888-1892). Other notable works by Yoshitoshi include his beauty portraits, "32 manners and customs" and "A collection of desires", and the historical series such as the "Selection of 100 warriors" and "Mirror of famous Japanese generals".
Yoshitoshi lived in a time where the art of Japanese printmaking was already decaying, affected by the new western technologies and by the loss of its functional identity. His reaction to this state of things was to request the highest standards of quality, both technical and artistic.
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