Kaminari

This Kaei-era color woodblock print ([nishiki-e](/glossary/nishiki-e)), dated 1848-1852 and held by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco at the Legion of Honor (accession number 54755.647), depicts Kaminari, the thunder god of Japanese folk religion. The Kaminari-sama, often portrayed as a fierce demonic figure beating a circle of drums, was a stock subject in Japanese popular religion and visual culture and recurs throughout kabuki, Nō, and the visual traditions of the Edo period. Yoshiume's treatment of the subject belongs to a group of related Kaei-era prints in the Legion of Honor's holdings, in which the artist takes subjects from Nō, Kagura, and Japanese popular religion and treats them in the small chūban format characteristic of Osaka kamigata-e. The sheet measures approximately 23.8 by 16.5 cm, slightly under the standard kamigata chūban dimensions, and is part of the museum's collection of Japanese woodblock prints. The series as a whole offers an unusually concentrated view of how an Osaka kamigata-e designer of the mid-nineteenth century engaged with the classical and folk religious heritage of premodern Japan.