Raijin (God of Thunder)

Raijin (God of Thunder) from 1937 — the great Shinto storm deity, traditionally depicted as a fearsome figure surrounded by a ring of drums — is one of Munakata's most energetically appropriate subjects. The thunder god's character — his percussion, his sudden appearance, his overwhelming force — aligned perfectly with Munakata's own carving energy: his prints were described by contemporaries as having the impact of a sudden thunderclap, their visual force immediate and overwhelming. Rendering the thunder god through his carving knife, Munakata was perhaps finding the deity most congenial to his own creative nature.