Yoshitoshi Tsukioka given name was Yonejiro. As an artist, from 1873 on, he used the name Yoshitoshi Taiso. Not much is known about his youth, but all indications are that it was very unpleasant. His father had taken a mistress, and the boy --- apparently unwanted --- was raised by his uncle.
At the age of eleven, Yoshitoshi enrolled as a student of the school of the great master of ukiyo-e, Kuniyoshi. At the age of fourteen he composed his first woodblock print - a triptych of the naval battle of Dannoura in which the Minamoto clan destroyed the forces of the Taira clan in 1185. The same year, in 1853, US Commodore Perry arrived with a fleet of battleships and forced the opening of Japan to the West.
Throughout Yoshitoshi's studies, his master Kuniyoshi was like a father to him. Kuniyoshi died in 1861 and hard times begean to envelope the young student, garnishing barely enough commissions to survive.
The early 1860s in Japan were a period of great unrest and civil war-like skirmishes between proponents of the old Shogun government and their opponents who gathered around the emperor. During the Shogunate, that is since 1192, the Japanese Emperors had been powerless.
In addition to the political instability, a devastated economy made things worse for ordinary citizens. Japan was then in a deep recession, plagued by hyper inflation and by crop failures.
In 1868 the last Shogun resigned after two thousand of his troops were badly beaten by an imperial force in the bloody battle of Ueno. The imperial soldiers were well-equipped with modern guns while their enemies fought with swords.
With the Meiji Restoration, Yoshitoshi experienced a short period of modest commercial success followed by a sharp decline in commissions and bitter poverty. In the early seventies his problems with mental illness and depression erupted. Unable to work, he hardly produced any prints for two years.
In 1873 he recovered from his depressions and changed his name to Taiso, which translates into "great resurrection". But in spite of new energies, his poverty continued. Yoshitoshi Tsukioka had to experience embarrassing moments. Okoto, Yoshitoshi's mistress, sharing the fate of many wives of impoverished former samurai who could not support their families, sold herself to a brothel to raise money for his support.
In 1877 the political events changed Yoshitoshi's life again. This time it was in his favor. An uprise of the samurai class came to its final climax. The samurai were lead by Saigo Takamori. After initial successes of the rebellion, the imperial troops pushed the rebels back to a hillside near Kagoshima. In the final battle Sago Takamori and his last faithful followers committed suicide in samurai manner when their situation had become hopeless.
In the aftermath of this rebellion, there was a huge demand for illustrations of the events and Yoshitoshi Tsukioka was literally flooded with commissions.
In the 1880s, Yoshitoshi Taiso was finally financially settled. He moved into a huge house of his own and married a woman from the pleasure quarters. His school flourished. In 1882 he was employed by a newspaper. This gave him a steady income and marked the end of long years of poverty and sufferings.
WOODBLOCK PRINT OF CHIYONO, BY YOSHITOSHI
Yoshitoshi's reputation grew, and in spite of his bad health he relentlessly composed a great number of prints. These years were Yoshitoshi's most prolific ones - not only in terms of quantity, but also in terms of artistic quality. In 1985 the first designs of One Hundred Aspects of the Moon were published. This series was extremely popular. The above woodblock from that same series shows Lady Chiyono (Mugai Nyodai, 1223-1298) who longed relentlessly for Enlightenment. One moonlit night she was carrying an old bucket filled with water. As she walked along the path she noticed the full moon reflected in the pail of water. As she continued on, the bamboo strip that held the pail staves together began to break and the bucket started to come apart. The bottom of the pail broke through, and the water disappeared into the soil, the moon's reflection disappearing along with it. In that moment Chiyono realized that the moon she had been looking at was just a reflection of the real thing...just as her whole life had been. People waited in long lines to get any one of the new Yoshitoshi prints with the Lady Chiyono woodblock being one of the most popular. In 1888 the series 32 Aspects of Customs and Manners was published - a series of women prints. In 1889 a new series with ghost subjects came on the market: New Form of 36 Ghosts.
The symptoms of mental illness became more and more frequent. Nevertheless Yoshitoshi Tsukioka continued to work. He died on June 9, 1892 from a cerebral hermorrhage at the age of 53.
SOURCE:
One Hundred Aspects of the Moon, John Stevenson
Avery Press, 600 Kalmia Avenue, Boulder, CO 80304
ISBN 0-9632218-0-9
