Yoshitoshi

Cao Cao (Sōsō in Japanese), a forceful but ruthless military lord described in the semi-historical Romance of the Three Kingdoms, is shown here standing in a small boat overlooking the Yangzi River. In the distance, two crows – messengers of good news – fly away from him towards the full moon over Mount Nanping. This print illustrates the episode in which Cao Cao disregarded the bad omen and the advice of one of his generals for caution. He gave orders for the battle at the Red Cliffs in which he was ultimately defeated.

Shi Jin was one of the 108 bandits in the 13th-century Chinese tale The watermargin (‘Shuihu zhuan’), later translated into Japanese as ‘Suikoden’. Originally from a wealthy landowner family, Shi Jin became an outlaw after sympathising with three bandit leaders who planned to attack his village. Shi caught but released them after hearing how oppression and injustice had forced them to become outlaws. Elaborate body tattoos symbolised physical courage and toughness but were also markers of a low social class. Shi Jin’s heavily tattooed body indicates he has joined the rank of the bandits. Here, he enjoys a last peaceful evening before leaving his home to escape arrest.

Zi Fang is the literary name of Zhang Liang, who served Liu Bang in his rise to becoming the first Han emperor in 206 BC. According to the Shiji, China’s first history, Zhang climbed Mount Ji Ming on the night before a decisive battle and played melodies from the enemy soldiers’ home province. The men got so homesick they deserted, and thus doomed their army to defeat.

The full title of this work is 'The night is full and a hundred flowers are fragrant in the western palace/ she orders the screen to be rolled up, regretting the passing of spring/ with the ‘yunhe’ across her lap she gazes at the moon/ the colours of the trees are hazy in the indistinct moonlight – Wang Changling’.

This print is the literal visualisation of two couplets by the eighth-century Chinese poet Wang Zhangling. A noblewoman interrupted her play of the string instrument when she noticed the lovely spring night outside. The ‘yunhe’ mentioned in the title poem indicates the type of wood used to make the Chinese lute (pipa). Yoshitoshi, however, interpreted this as the qin, a seven-string zither.

Zi Luo, one of Confucius’ most important disciples, came from a poor rural family. Despite his humble origins, he made enormous efforts to educate himself, rising in the ranks of civil service to eventually become a government official. He was also revered as one of China’s famous Twenty-four Paragons of Filial Piety. He was known to walk long distances carrying bags of rice, a luxury good at that time, to his parents. Here, he is shown on one of those travels, profiting from the moonlight to study while walking.

The lady dressed in elegant Chinese costume standing by a flowering plum tree in a perfect full-moon night represents the Spirit of the Plum Tree. She is said to have appeared to the seventh-century Chinese poet Zhao Shixiong when he made a pilgrimage to Luofu in southern China to visit the plum trees there. Tired from his trip, Zhao fell asleep under a tree and a beautiful lady – the Spirit of the Plum Tree – appeared in his dreams. The incident inspired him to compose a poem.

Hotei, one of the Seven Lucky Gods, was the god of happiness and good fortune. He is often depicted in loose clothes, with a large hairy stomach, leaning comfortably on a large bag of treasures. A famous theme of Zen painters, Hotei is shown pointing childlike to the moon as it suddenly appears from behind the clouds. The appearance of the moon served as both an awakening for Hotei and a lesson to the viewer: not to confuse the finger pointing at the moon with the moon itself.

The poem in the title is by Abe no Nakamaro, the son of a high official at the imperial court in Nara in the eighth century. A prodigy in mathematics, Nakamaro was sent to China to study the Chinese methods of measuring time. Through a series of unfortunate events, he could never return to Japan. Nakamaro is shown here sitting on the veranda of a Chinese palace, gazing at the full moon and wondering whether the moon he sees in China would be the same as the one he used to see in Nara, his home town.

The immortal monkey Sun Wukong (Songoku in Japanese) means ‘enlightened emptiness’. Songoku accompanied the priest Tripitaka on a journey from China to India in the 7th century to collect scriptures, and became popular through the Chinese novel ‘Journey to the West’. He gained immortality by breaking into the heavenly garden and consuming the peaches of longevity. Here, his companion is the Rabbit in the Moon (or Jade Rabbit), often associated with mixing the drugs for the elixir of life. Songoku fearlessly holds a magic staff, his favourite weapon used to strike demons.

Ono no Takamura served as a high-ranking official at the court of Emperor Saga in the ninth century. Renowned as a poet and calligrapher, Takamura was also often praised as a model of filial piety and generosity. He shared his stipends with relatives and friends who were more in need than him, and showed great respect to his parents. The iconography could also refer to Ceng Shen, an important disciple of Confucius, who is credited with the compilation of the Twenty-Four Paragons of Filial Piety. Legend has it that Ceng was gathering brushwood in the forest when he had the premonition that his mother needed him. He hurried home to find that she had missed him so much she had bit her finger hard in vexation.

In 1082, Song dynasty official, poet and painter Su Dongpo (also known as Su Shi) went with friends to enjoy the full moon on a boating trip to Red Cliffs on the Yangzi River. There his guests, surrounded by the grandeur of the landscape, reminisced, wrote poetry and played the flute. This motif was popular in China during the Ming dynasty (1369–1644) and activities such as picnics and poetry parties were adopted during the Edo period in Japan by bunjin (literati), who recognised their debt to the Chinese literati school of painters from the period.

Chang E (Jōga in Japanese) was the wife of Hou Yi, an archer who served Yao, the mythical emperor of China. One night the moon was eclipsed and the emperor ordered Hou Yi to save it, so he shot arrows into the sky shooting nine suns (leaving one), and the moon reappeared. His reward from the Royal Mother of the West, a Daoist deity, was a cup filled with the elixir of life. His wife stole the cup and drank it and then escaped to the moon where she reigned as goddess.