Sōma Tarō Yoshikado, from the series Ibaraki no keshin

Sōma Tarō Yoshikado, from Utagawa Kuniyoshi's 1843 series Ibaraki no keshin, depicts the son of the rebel Taira no Masakado, a figure who in legend inherited his father's defiance against the Heian court and was associated with supernatural traditions linking him to Princess Takiyasha and the family's reputed sorcery. Kuniyoshi, the Edo ukiyo-e designer best known for his warrior prints, made Masakado's family one of his recurring subjects, most famously in the great triptych of the Takiyasha princess summoning a skeletal apparition. The Harvard Art Museums impression of Sōma Tarō Yoshikado preserves the bold figural drawing, dynamic compositional intensity, and confident line work characteristic of Kuniyoshi's musha-e at the height of his career. The 1843 dating places the print within the immediate aftermath of the Tenpō reforms, when publishers turned away from contemporary actors and courtesans and toward historical and legendary subjects—a category that perfectly suited Kuniyoshi's storytelling instincts. The Ibaraki no keshin series gathered legendary figures within an inventive frame, allowing Kuniyoshi to demonstrate the range of his historical imagination and his command of theatrical posture, armor, and supernatural atmosphere. The print's strong silhouette and decisive contour work reveal the maturity of an artist who had been producing warrior prints for nearly two decades by this date. As part of the Harvard collection, the impression supports continuing study of how Utagawa Kuniyoshi negotiated the political constraints of mid-1840s Edo by turning to the rich vein of legendary warrior subjects for which he is celebrated. Source: Harvard Art Museums.