23 Facts About Tsukioka Yoshitoshi

Tsukioka Yoshitoshi is regarded as one of the form's greatest innovators.

Tsukioka Yoshitoshi's reputation has only continued to grow, both in the West, and among younger Japanese, and he is almost universally recognized as the greatest Japanese artist of his era.

Tsukioka Yoshitoshi was born in the Shimbashi district of old Edo, in 1839.

Tsukioka Yoshitoshi's father was a wealthy merchant who had bought his way into samurai status.

At the age of three years, Tsukioka Yoshitoshi left home to live with his uncle, a pharmacist with no son, who was very fond of his nephew.

In 1850, when he was 11 years old, Tsukioka Yoshitoshi was apprenticed to Kuniyoshi, one of the great masters of the Japanese woodblock print.

Kuniyoshi gave his apprentice the new artist's name "Tsukioka Yoshitoshi", denoting lineage in the Utagawa School.

Tsukioka Yoshitoshi learned the elements of western drawing techniques and perspective through studying Kuniyoshi's collection of foreign prints and engravings.

Tsukioka Yoshitoshi contributed designs to the 1863 Tokaido series by Utagawa School artists organized under the auspices of Kunisada.

In late 1863, Tsukioka Yoshitoshi began making violent sketches, eventually incorporated into battle prints designed in a bloody and extravagant style.

The public enjoyed these prints and Tsukioka Yoshitoshi began to move up in the ranks of ukiyo-e artists in Edo.

Besides the demands of woodblock print publishers and consumers, Tsukioka Yoshitoshi was trying to exorcise the demons of horror that he and his fellow countrymen were experiencing.

Between 1866 and 1868 Tsukioka Yoshitoshi created disturbing images, notably in the series Eimei nijuhasshuku.

In 1868, following the Battle of Ueno, Tsukioka Yoshitoshi made the series Kaidai hyaku senso in which he portrays contemporary soldiers as historical figures in a semi-western style, using close-up and unusual angles, often shown in the heat of battle with desperate expressions.

Tsukioka Yoshitoshi lived in appalling conditions with his devoted mistress, Okoto, who sold off her clothes and possessions to support him.

Newspapers sprung up in the modernization drive, and Tsukioka Yoshitoshi was recruited to produce "news nishikie".

Tsukioka Yoshitoshi's works gave him more public recognition, and the money was a help, but it was not until 1882 that he was secure.

Tsukioka Yoshitoshi published "Mirror of Famous Generals of Great Japan", a series of 51 works that depicted great men from Japanese mythology to the Edo period, from 1877 to 1882, and he further increased his reputation.

In 1883, Tsukioka Yoshitoshi published "Fujiwara no Yasumasa Gekka Roteki zu" an ukiyo-e, based on an original drawing which was exhibited at the previous year's exhibition of Japanese paintings.

Tsukioka Yoshitoshi insisted on high standards of production and helped save it temporarily from degeneracy.

Tsukioka Yoshitoshi became a master teacher and had notable pupils such as Toshikata Mizuno, Toshihide Migita, and others.

Tsukioka Yoshitoshi eventually left, in May 1892, but did not return home, instead renting rooms.

Tsukioka Yoshitoshi died three weeks later in a rented room, on June 9,1892, from a cerebral hemorrhage.