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

Part of the Kyosai hyakuzu anthology, this woodblock print represents one of Kyosai's characteristic subject types rendered for a published collection intended to survey his artistic range. The hyakuzu circulated among an audience that valued Kyosai both as technical virtuoso and as cultural commentator, and individual sheets were collected as demonstrations of his draftsmanship. This print may belong to the series' strand of supernatural imagery — tengu, oni, or other figures from Japanese folklore that Kyosai rendered with a combination of iconographic fidelity and comic deflation. His demon figures are rarely entirely menacing; a satirical undercurrent runs through even the most formally imposing supernatural subjects in his work. The composition is likely centered on a single or paired figure, with the background kept spare to concentrate attention on Kyosai's handling of form and line. Printed from carved woodblocks, the sheet translates ink painting gesture into the graphic language of nishiki-e.