from the series One Hundred Pictures by Kyôsai (Kyôsai hyakuzu)

Part of the Kyosai hyakuzu anthology, this print draws from the vast reservoir of subjects Kyosai commanded over his career. The hyakuzu was designed to demonstrate pictorial range: each sheet presented a self-contained composition, and across the hundred sheets the series moves from devotional imagery to burlesque, from precise naturalistic [kacho-e](/glossary/kacho-e) to wildly gestural demon subjects. This entry may depict a yokai or supernatural being — a category where Kyosai's comic and grotesque imagination found its freest expression. His yokai figures tend toward caricature without abandoning anatomical precision, a combination that produces images simultaneously unsettling and playful. The composition is likely organized around a single dominant figure against a spare ground, allowing the expressive line work to carry the visual argument. Kyosai's characteristic use of asymmetric balance and negative space gives even abbreviated compositions a quality of arrested movement.