Benkei And Yoshitsune

A musha-e (warrior print) treating a frequently depicted episode in Japanese visual culture: the legendary encounter between the warrior monk Saitō Musashibō Benkei and the young general Minamoto no Yoshitsune, traditionally set on the Gojō Bridge in Kyoto. The subject had been illustrated by Hokusai, Kuniyoshi, and Tsukioka Yoshitoshi before Mori, and his treatment likely recasts it through the bold, theatrical idiom he developed from kabuki imagery. The composition probably contrasts Benkei's heavy armoured bulk—with his polearm (naginata), sword, and rosary—against the slender, fluid figure of Yoshitsune, often shown leaping or playing the flute. Mori's rendering of armour, sleeves, and weaponry tended toward strongly patterned blacks set against unmodulated colour, owing more to the visual language of Edo woodblock book illustration and kabuki costume than to any naturalistic concern. The print is consistent with his career-long return to the heroes, rogues, and supernatural figures of pre-Meiji popular culture, treated through the carved-and-printed self-sufficiency of the sosaku-hanga programme.