legends (folk tales); robes (main garments); children (people by age group); boys; sandals
Back to back print. A man in a priest's robes and headdress cups the chin of a young boy standing beside him; a rosary dangles from his right wrist. The boy, dressed in traveling clothes, grasps the priest's wrist and lays his face in the man's...
In the autumn fashionable geisha would dress in their lover's garments to visit the neighborhood shrine and participate in Niwaka kyogen, impromptu skits about life in the brothels. Dressed like an elegant young man, a young lady glances up at a...
men (male humans); women; mountains; trees; kimonos
The upper panel shows the Chinese boy Shun with a hoe and the main image has a Japanese woman with a hoe. According to the Guo Jujing story, Shun was so diligent in plowing his parents' field, even though they were cruel to him, that elephants came...
women; men (male humans); kimonos; folding screens; children (people by age group); flowers (plants); interior spaces; built works
A baby receives his first bath, with his fisherman father Myomeijiro holding a towel, his grandmother at the wooden tub and his mother Umechiyo recovering with a cup of tea. The child would become the Buddhist prelate Nichiren (1222-1282), whose...
men (male humans); women; children (people by age group); kimonos; trees; flowers (plants)
According to a noh play, a woman from Mino Province had become a courtesan in the capital. Honoring a promise to a customer, she sent a treasured fan to Yoshida no Shosho, but because he did not respond, she went mad, wandering the streets and...
men (male humans); women; children (people by age group); swords; flowers (plants); kimonos; lamps (lighting devices)
Minamoto no Mitsunaga sent his son Bijomaru to a temple to study and become a priest, but Bijomaru practiced martial arts instead. His father was angry and ordered his chief retainer Nakamitsu to kill Bijomaru. Nakamitsu could not bring himself to...
The alleged poisoning of the great warrior Kato Kiyomasa (1562-1611) was the subject of a kabuki play that premiered in 1807, but due to government censorship at the time, the main character's name was changed Sato Masakiyo. According to legend,...
When only eleven years old, Michizane composed his first poem in Chinese. The plum blossom was Michizane's favorite flower, and he would often write about its fragile petals and delicate fragrance. Here the artist has depicted the young poet...
An old, bearded man holding a feather fan floats above a young man in white with a sword. A bucket and dipper sit in the background. Tengu are forest creatures with long noses who can fly and fight fiercely; his supernatural status is indicated in...
Hanai Oume, who formerly had been a geisha under other names, was the owner of the Suigetsu restaurant in Tokyo. The night of June 9, 1887, she killed a man named Kamekichi on the banks of the Sumida River and afterward was arrested and charged...
Back to back print. A man in a blue robe and a black samurai hat stands holding a fan; a younger man in a red kimono and holding a sword sits at his feet. Behind them is a screen painted with crane, and through an open doorway one can see a stone...
Back to back print. A man in a blue kimono and hakama stands and reaches for his sword at his side, while a woman in voluminous robes lies at his feet on the ground.
Kusunoki Masatsura (1326-1348) was one of those samurai doomed to a brief life...
Wake no Kiyomaro (733 - 99) was a high-ranking Japanese official during the Nara period and a trusted adviser to Emperor Kammu. One day a messenger arrived with an edict from Usa Hachiman Shrine, ordering that Yuge-no-Dōkyō, a politically...
warriors; women; men (male humans); torches (lighting devices); nobility; built works; armor (protective wear)
The young noble or onzoshi called Ushiwakamaru, who would later be known as the great warrior Minamoto no Yoshitsune (1159-1189), traveled to Mutsu Province, in the north of the main island, where he sought lodgings one night in a cottage. When the...
men (male humans); women; swords; monks; Gods; waterfalls (natural bodies of water)
The figure crouching on a rock beneath a waterfall is Mongaku (1139-1203), who was born into the Watanabe military clan and initially named Endo Morito. However when he was in his late teens, he decided to become a Buddhist monk and changed his...
women; kimonos; children (people by age group); snow (precipitation); trees; hats
Tokiwa gozen had to flee Kyoto in the dead of winter after her husband Minamoto no Yoshitomo (1123-60) was murdered and their home pillaged. (See Plate 55) Here she clasps to her chest their youngest son Ushiwaka, wrapped in orange brocade; he will...
