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Japan supernatural

2 Nov 2019 - 8 Mar 2020

Tsukioka Yoshitoshi, 'The old woman retrieves her arm' from the series 'New forms of thirty-six ghosts', 1889 (detail)

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Utagawa Kunimune II, 'Kuzunoha: writing a farewell poem to her child', c1830, hanging scroll; ink and colours on silk. Art Gallery of New South Wales. Purchased with funds donated by Tony Schlosser 2019.

Utagawa Kunimune II, 'Kuzunoha: writing a farewell poem to her child’, c1830

Kuzunoha is a white fox who has taken human form. When still a fox, she was trapped by a hunter and set free by a young man. She fell in love with her saviour and transformed to be with him. When their son was small, he noticed his mother’s tufts of tail. As a result, she was obliged to return to life as a fox. Kuzunoha held the boy close and wrote her farewell poem with a brush in her mouth. It says, ‘If you love me, try to come and visit me’ (aishikuba tazune kite miyo)’.

 
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Tsukioka Yoshitoshi, 'The courtesan Ohyaku (Dakki no Ohyaku) and a ghost' from the series 'Twenty-eight famous murders with verse (Eimei nijūhasshūku)', 1866 woodblock print; ink and colour on paper. Art Gallery of New South Wales. Yasuko Myer Bequest Fund 2019.

Tsukioka Yoshitoshi, 'The courtesan Ohyaku (Dakki no Ohyaku) and a ghost’, 1866

 

Netsuke

Usually carved from wood, horn or ivory, these little sculptures were objects of fashion and could take any form

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