Yoshitoshi's series, One Hundred Aspects of the Moon, completed shortly before his death
in 1892 and published between 1885 and 1892, epitomizes the restraint and subtlety that
mark his mature work. Against the backdrop of a national policy of westernization,
Yoshitoshi offered his audience a pilgrimage to Japan's glorious past. The series of one
hundred individual woodblock prints depicts figures from Japanese and Chinese mythology,
folklore, history, literature, and theater. Each subject is captured at a moment in time
and held suspended by a poetic dialogue with the moon. The Moon series was so popular
that townspeople were said to have lined up before dawn to buy a print of the latest image.

For the purpose of this publication the images are arranged thematically in three broad
categories: Literature, Myth, and Music; The Warrior; and The Floating World. The arrangement
follows the design of the exhibit installation "One Hundred Aspects of the Moon: Japanese
Woodblock Prints by Yoshitoshi," held at the Museum of International Folk Art from July 15
to October 14, 2001. The numbers on the prints refer to the order in which the prints
appeared in the exhibit. The date given with each of the individual prints is the date it
was originally issued to the public

Contains the book (text and images) in a PDF and 100 individual images (jpg 200 dpi)

Download File Size:222.65 MB

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