Description
Zi Fang was the literary name of Zhang Liang (in Japanese, Shibo), who served as the chief advisor to Liu Bang, the first emperor of the Han Dynasty (202 BC - 9 AD, 25 - 220 AD) in ancient China. It was he who persuaded the emperor to join forces with Xiang Yu to overthrow the tyrannical state of Qin. However, the alliance did not hold. Liu Bang’s army pursued Xiang Yu and surrounded him, but he eluded defeat. One night, Zhang Liang approached the enemy camp and played one of the sheng (a mournful sounding mouth organ) melodies from their home province. When the enemy soldiers heard the music, they were so homesick that most of them deserted. Xiang Yu subsequently committed suicide and Liu Bang became emperor of China. Zhang Liang’s robes flutter on the wind as it carries that fatal melody behind enemy lines.
About the artist
Considered one of the last great masters of ukiyo-e, Yoshitoshi Tsukioka's woodblock prints are known for their eerie and imaginative nature. Yoshitoshi worked in a Japan undergoing rapid change, straddling the domains of the old, feudal system of the Edo period and the new, modern world of the Meiji period. His powerful imagination and originality imbued his prints with a sensitivity and honesty rarely seen in ukiyo-e of this time period. From ghost stories to folktales, violent clashes to the gentle glow of the moon, Yoshitoshi offers not only compositional and technical brilliance, but also unfettered passion.
Yoshitoshi was born in Edo on April 30th, 1839. As a young boy, he showed remarkable artistic talent and fierce interest in classical Japanese literature and history. He began to study under the renowned Kuniyoshi at the age of 11. Kuniyoshi, a leading woodblock print artist of the day, developed a close relationship with his pupil and gave him the name Yoshitoshi. Yoshitoshi Tsukioka published his first print to modest success in 1853, a triptych of a famous clash between the Taira and Minamoto clans. That same year, Commodore Perry's "black ships" docked in Edo Bay.
In the early 1860s, Yoshitoshi's prints focused on kabuki subjects and historical scenes, as well as foreigners. As the 19th century progressed, ukiyo-e felt the influence of the modern era, particularly through the introduction of synthetic dyes. Yoshitoshi learned to use these colors with subtlety and skill, holding his works to the highest printing standards throughout his career. Following Kuniyoshi's death in 1861, Yoshitoshi struggled as he set off on his own, taking Toshikage as his first student in 1863. As political instability grew in Japan during the late 1860s, he entered his "bloody period," an era marked by images of graphic violence and extravagant brutality.
As Meiji-period modernization pushed ahead, Yoshitoshi Tsukioka suffered a nervous breakdown in 1872, living in poverty and ceasing all artistic production. A year later, he resumed work; adopting the artist name Taiso, meaning "Great Resurrection," and fulfilling his creative potential. While Yoshitoshi continued to present battle scenes on his ukiyo-e woodblock prints, he turned his attention to more recent incidents and slowly shifted from overt violence to the psychological struggles of individuals. In 1885, he began one of his most acclaimed series, One Hundred Views of the Moon (1885-1892). During the last decade of his life, Yoshitoshi designed numerous illustrated books and several other popular series including Thirty-two Aspects of Women (1888) and Thirty-six Ghosts and Strange Apparitions. (1889-1892). In the spring of 1892, he suffered his final mental breakdown and was committed to the Sugamo Asylum. On the 9th of June 1892, he died of a cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 53.