Scene from Tale of Heike

Held by the Art Institute of Chicago (accession 1968.358) and dated to the late eighteenth or nineteenth century, this Katsukawa Shuntei [aiban](/glossary/aiban) print depicts a scene from the Tale of the Heike (Heike monogatari), the medieval war chronicle that supplied Edo-period [musha-e](/glossary/musha-e) designers with their richest single body of historical subject matter. The Tale of the Heike narrates the Genpei War of 1180–1185, the conflict between the Taira (Heike) and Minamoto (Genji) clans whose outcome established the Kamakura shogunate and inaugurated the long medieval period of warrior rule in Japan. The chronicle was composed in the early thirteenth century, transmitted both as a written text and as an oral performance tradition by biwa hōshi (lute-playing monks), and by the Edo period had been fully absorbed into popular culture through kabuki plays, illustrated books, and woodblock prints. Specific episodes of the Heike — the death of Atsumori at the hands of Kumagai, the standoff at Yashima, the burning of Fukuhara, the suicide of the Taira at Dan-no-ura — recurred constantly as subjects for late-Edo warrior imagery. The aiban format (an intermediate-sized vertical print, roughly 22 by 33 cm) was a common commercial sheet size for nineteenth-century musha-e, smaller than the prestigious ōban but more substantial than the small [hosoban](/glossary/hosoban) of the earlier Katsukawa school. Shuntei's choice of Heike subject matter and the warrior imagery itself situate this print firmly within the musha-e specialization that defines his career and his historical reputation.