Battle of Ichi–no–tani, March 21, 1184

This woodblock print in ink and color on paper at the Metropolitan Museum of Art depicts the Battle of Ichi-no-tani of March 1184, one of the most celebrated engagements of the Genpei War between the Minamoto and Taira clans. The battle was famous above all for Minamoto Yoshitsune's descent of the Hiyodorigoe cliff at the rear of the Taira encampment, a move that the chronicles credit with breaking the Taira position, and for the duel between the young Taira commander Atsumori and the Minamoto warrior Kumagai Naozane, later dramatised in the Noh play 'Atsumori.' Toyoharu's print belongs to the tradition of musha-e or warrior prints, and is unusual within his oeuvre, which is dominated by uki-e perspective designs, bijin-ga, and theatre subjects rather than by historical battles. It is evidence that he was a thoroughly trained narrative designer capable of handling the standard Edo historical-pictorial canon, and it provides a precedent for the great nineteenth-century musha-e of his school's later star, Utagawa Kuniyoshi, whose lineage runs through Toyoharu's pupil Toyokuni I.