The Eye of Atrocity

The Eye of Atrocity is the second book in the Ukyo-E Master Series and features Tsukioka Yoshitoshi, who had apprenticed to ukiyo-e master Kuniyoshi since his adolescence, and was twenty years old when he first began to make sketches of severed heads and dismembered corpses. Soon he would start to incorporate this imagery into his work, and his vivid and bloody battle scenes quickly caught the public eye. Most of Yoshitoshi’s mushs-e (“warrior pictures”) triptychs and series between 1861 and 1869 would include his trademark scenes of carnage, in particular Eimei Nijuhasshuku (1866-68), a collaboration with fellow artist Ochiai Yoshiiku. This series was an unashamed exercise in atrocity which took the concept of muzan-e (“cruelty prints”) to new extremes of violence and gore. In 1868, Yoshitoshi was a first-hand witness to the Battle of Ueno, a cataclysmic clash which further inspired him to create new images of evisceration and decapitation. Out of Print. Condition: Very Fine Minus. Lightly tipped corners.