Samurai and Monsters
- Medium:
- Woodblock print
- Format:
- Oban
- Source:
- Honolulu Museum of Art
Description
A composition combining the perennial subjects of warrior and supernatural adversary — the armed samurai confronting demons, monsters, or supernatural opponents that had been a staple of Japanese narrative art since the Heian period. Kyosai's warriors never merely stand their ground: they advance, they strike, they display the concentrated fury of men trained from childhood to regard violence as a discipline. His demons, meanwhile, are rarely simply evil but complicated figures — sometimes comic, sometimes tragic — whose confrontation with human martial virtue generates genuine dramatic tension.
More Prints by Kawanabe Kyosai
Tenpôzan in Osaka: Viewing Children's Sumo (Naniwa Tenpôzan kodomo sumô shôran), from the series Scenes of Famous Places along the Tôkaidô Road (Tôkaidô meisho fûkei), also known as the Processional Tôkaidô (Gyôretsu Tôkaidô), here called Tôkaidô
1863
Woodblock print
Kyosai, Royal Academy, London, FREE DOMESTIC SHIPPING
2022
Original Museum Lithographic Exhibition Poster
from the series One Hundred Pictures by Kyôsai (Kyôsai hyakuzu)
Woodblock print
Old Picture of the Rashômon Gate (Rashômon no ko zu), from the series Scenes of Famous Places along the Tôkaidô Road (Tôkaidô meisho fûkei), also known as the Processional Tôkaidô (Gyôretsu Tôkaidô), here called Tôkaidô meisho tsuzuki
Woodblock print
More Warriors Prints
Benkei Bridge
Woodblock print
Saishin, from the series "Fashionable Women as the One Hundred and Eight Heroes of the Water Margin (Fuzoku onna Suikoden, ippyakuhachinin no uchi)"
c. 1828/30
Color woodblock print; surimono
Herakles, Shôwa period, dated 1965?
Woodblock print
Chüshingura in Twelve Months
Woodblock print
Featured in Collections
Curated cross-cuts that include this print.
Frequently Asked Questions
Samurai and Monsters was created by Kawanabe Kyosai (河鍋暁斎).
Samurai and Monsters depicts warriors.