The Earth Spider Slain by Brave Samurai Watanabe no Tauna (center image)

This Katsukawa Shunsho design at the Art Institute of Chicago depicts a celebrated episode from the legendary career of Watanabe no Tsuna (here transliterated as Watanabe no Tauna), one of the Four Heavenly Kings (shitenno) who served the great warrior Minamoto no Yorimitsu in the late Heian period: the slaying of the Earth Spider (Tsuchigumo), a malevolent demon that took the form of a monstrous arachnid to threaten the imperial capital. The Earth Spider story was a perennial subject in Japanese visual culture, treated in Noh drama (in the play Tsuchigumo), in kabuki, in painting, and across the woodblock print tradition. The center sheet of what was likely a multi-panel composition, this print shows the climactic moment when Tsuna's blade engages the supernatural enemy. Although Katsukawa Shunsho is best known as the founder of the Katsukawa school of Edo ukiyo-e yakusha-e (actor pictures), his oeuvre also encompassed warrior subjects, historical legends, and bijinga, demonstrating the breadth of capabilities expected of a leading print designer. The dramatic energy of this composition, with its bold linework and decisive contrasts, marks the work as belonging to the muscular tradition of musha-e (warrior pictures) that ran parallel to the actor-print mainstream. Shunsho's command of figure in violent motion is on full display, prefiguring the warrior compositions that his pupil Katsushika Hokusai (working briefly under the name Shunro) would later develop in his own ways. The Art Institute impression preserves the visual force of the original design, capturing both the heroism of Tsuna and the menacing otherness of the spider demon.