Daoist immortal Li Tieguai (Japanese: Tekkai)

Daoist immortal Li Tieguai (Japanese: Tekkai) is a color woodblock print by Katsushika Taito II dated around 1830-44 and held by the Art Institute of Chicago as a section of a harimaze sheet. Tekkai-sennin, the Japanese name for Li Tieguai, was one of the Eight Daoist Immortals and an enduring subject in East Asian painting and prints. He was traditionally shown as a beggar with an iron crutch (the literal meaning of his Chinese name), able to exhale his own soul as a small figure from his mouth—the moment most often illustrated. Taito II's treatment follows the iconographic conventions, depicting the bearded immortal with his crutch and emphasizing the breath-as-soul motif. The harimaze format placed such figures within the broader print culture of the 1830s and 1840s, when Daoist and Buddhist subjects appeared regularly on multi-image sheets alongside landscapes, kacho-ga, and other small genre scenes. The Hokusai-school manner is evident in the figure's bold contour drawing and the slightly exaggerated facial features.