Center Sheet of a Triptych of The Battle of the Uji River (Ujikawa kassen no zu)

This Edo ukiyo-e sheet by Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1797-1861), preserved in the Harvard Art Museums (object 209996), forms the center sheet of a triptych depicting the Battle of the Uji River (Ujikawa kassen no zu). The encounter is one of the most celebrated episodes of the Genpei War (1180-1185), the great civil conflict between the Taira and Minamoto clans that became a foundational subject of Japanese warrior literature and visual culture. In the Heike monogatari, two retainers of Minamoto no Yoshitsune, Sasaki Takatsuna and Kajiwara Kagesue, race their horses across the swollen Uji River to be first to engage the enemy on the opposite bank, an episode emblematic of samurai honor and rivalry. Kuniyoshi treated this subject more than once across his career; the triptych format - three vertically oriented sheets read together as a single broad composition - allowed him to stage the full sweep of cavalry and infantry in the river, an ideal scope for his energetic figural draftsmanship. As the leading designer of warrior prints in nineteenth-century Edo, Kuniyoshi specialized in such large-format battle scenes, drawing on the Heike monogatari, Taiheiki, and other classical narratives. Even isolated from its outer sheets, the center panel preserves the most concentrated action of the design, with horses, banners, and armor packed across the picture plane. The work exemplifies how Kuniyoshi extended ukiyo-e from its earlier urban subjects into the grand historical mode that defined warrior prints in the late Edo period.