Hakamadare Yasusuke

Yashima Gakutei designed this portrait of Hakamadare Yasusuke in 1828, depicting the notorious bandit and trickster of Heian-period legend. The print is preserved in the Victoria and Albert Museum, which holds an important group of Gakutei's surimono on historical and legendary subjects.

Hakamadare Yasusuke was a famous outlaw whose exploits, recorded in the Konjaku monogatari and other medieval anthologies, included audacious robberies and a celebrated encounter with the warrior Fujiwara no Yasumasa, whose calm flute-playing reportedly cowed the bandit into nonviolent retreat. Gakutei depicts Yasusuke in dramatic guise, often armed and posed with the energetic, slightly theatrical bearing favored by Edo designers for legendary figures.

The composition reflects Gakutei's training in the Hokusai school under Totoya Hokkei. Katsushika Hokusai and his followers reveled in the rich literary heritage of medieval Japanese tales, drawing on Heian and Kamakura anthologies for figures whose drama could be condensed into a single sheet. Gakutei's Hakamadare is rendered with firm contour, patterned costume, and accents of metallic pigment characteristic of the surimono format, and the brigand's gesture and gaze project the dangerous charisma that made him a perennial subject of imagination.