God of Thunder

A depiction of Raijin, the Shinto god of thunder, traditionally rendered as a muscular demon-like figure surrounded by a ring of taiko drums which he strikes to produce thunder. The iconography descends from medieval painted screens, most famously the Raijin and Fujin screens by Tawaraya Sotatsu, and was subsequently absorbed into ukiyo-e and surimono. In a woodblock print of this subject the keyblock carries the dynamic linework of muscle and flying drapery, while overlay blocks build the ring of drums, the wild hair, and often a ground of swirling clouds. Shoun's treatment likely draws on the Edo-period conventions while adapting them to the late Meiji or Taisho printmaking idiom in which he worked. Mythological and supernatural subjects formed a smaller part of Shoun's output than his bijin-ga and genre scenes, and prints such as this show his engagement with the broader iconographic repertoire that designers of his generation inherited from earlier ukiyo-e production.