Yamakawa Riku | Special Exhibition: Yoshitoshi, a Genius Ukiyo-e Artist Who Lived Through Turbulent Times (Part 1)
A review of the Mizuno Museum exhibition on Tsukioka Yoshitoshi, focusing on curation that avoids overemphasizing his gruesome works and on the contemporaneity of his Tokaido landmark series.Summary
This article is the first part of a review of the special exhibition 'Yoshitoshi, a Genius Ukiyo-e Artist Who Lived Through Turbulent Times,' held at the Mizuno Museum in Nagano from August 1 to September 27, 2026. The writer traces the career of Tsukioka Yoshitoshi (1839-1892), known as 'the last ukiyo-e artist,' through about 190 works. A pupil of Utagawa Kuniyoshi, Yoshitoshi established the sensational 'muzan-e' (bloody prints) style during the late Edo and early Meiji transition. In the Meiji era, he created dramatic layouts of current events for the newspaper Hochi Shimbun, incorporating Western-style realism and deformation. The exhibition is notable for its curation: a sign warns of shocking content, and a fork in the viewing route allows visitors to bypass the muzan-e section. The inclusion of two works from his 'Tokaido Meisho Zue' (1868) series, created around the same time as his famous bloody series, suggests a link between the turbulent era and his later nervous breakdown. The article hints that the second part will further examine this contemporaneity and its visual implications.
(Source：artscape)