A collection of imaginative (and even humorous) illustrations of hell and other underworld realms in Japanese art works. A great reference for artists and illustrators.
The Jigoku-zoshi (“Hell Scrolls”) and similar documents from the 12th century onwards are amongst the earliest, and bloodiest, accounts of human carnage in Japanese art. Victims are burned, drowned in blood and excrement, crushed by fiery rocks, flayed, eaten alive by beasts, and have their bones pulverised by vicious, club-wielding oni (horned, clawed, fanged demons who may have multiple eyes and blue or red skin). This is the Buddhist concept of purgatory, where sinners have eight “great hells” and sixteen “lesser hells” to contend with. Japanese Hell pictures comprise a startling visual catalogue of atrocity and suffering. TORTURE DEMONS presents more than 60 such images, shown in full colour throughout, in which sinners are subjected to multiple mutilations and dismemberments, an orgy of religious retribution, torment and putrefaction.
Kawanabe Kyosai (1831-89) was only 6 years old when he joined the school of the great ukiyo-e master Utagawa Kuniyoshi, along with such fellow pupils as Yoshitoshi, who followed him in 1850. Later Kyosai studied traditional Japanese painting at the Kano school. As befits this varied apprenticeship, Kyosai would embrace many styles and methods during his artistic career. His eclectic approach may also be partly attributable to a legendary sake-drinking habit, which could account for the more bizarre extremes of his chosen subject matter -- in particular, weird demons and the bloody tortures of Hell. Kyosai can now be regarded as not only one of the last true ukiyo-e masters, but also as one of the first truly modernist painters of Japan. "Night Parade Of Hell Creatures", edited by Jack Hunter (who also edited the ground-breaking extreme ukiyo-e anthology "Dream Spectres"), collects and considers over 100 of Kyosai's most innovative, demented and bizarre images -- including multiple yokai, ghosts and demons -- presented in large-format and full-colour throughout. The Ukiyo-e Master Series: presenting seminal collections of art by the greatest print-designers and painters of Edo-period and Meiji-period Japan.
There can be no doubt that [Akutagawa] had more individuality than any other writer of his time and has left in Japanese literature a mass of artistic work, often grotesque and curious, that, while it undoubtedly angers the proletarian experimenters who now hold the stage and fight with lusty pens and a highly developed class consciousness against all that he stood for, will continue to live as long as men go on treasuring the fancies their fellows from time to time set down with care on paper.--Glen W. Shaw
A teacher tortured by his students finally explodes in a violent rage. Exhausted Salarymen are pushed beyond the brink. Blood, sweat and screams of 'FUCK YOU!' pour out of the characters within The Pits of Hell, and yet a sense of humour always shines through. Bold, absurd and all too real, Ebisu Yoshikazu's work feels distinctly underground, almost punk. The Pits of Hell collects eight classic stories by Ebisu Yoshikazu, originally published between 1969 and 1981. The collection features a foreword by Minami Shinbo and an essay by Ryan Holmberg placing Ebisu Yoshikazu and his work into context.
A fascinating book on the elegant paintings of birds and flowers in Edo-Rinpa painting The Rinpa school is one of the historical schools in Japanese painting established in 17th century Kyoto. Later in 19th century Edo (old Tokyo), Hoitsu Sakai, who worshiped and was influenced by Korin Ogata, revived this genre with his elegant, poetic and refined taste. This book showcases not only the most popular works of the Edo-Rinpa style but also features unique and innovative works from Kiitsu Suzuki, Hoitsu Sakai's own disciple, and shows how Rinpa style has been passed on to the modern painters such as Shunso Hishida and Sekka Kamisaka. Written by Momo Miyazaki, a specialist in Edo period painting and the curator of The Museum Yamato Bunkakan, this book will be an informative must have treasury book for Japanese art lovers, creators, and artists.--Momo Miyazaki
Takarabe Toriko’s autobiographical novel Heaven and Hell is a beautiful, chilling account of her childhood in Manchukuo, the puppet state established by the Japanese in northeast China in 1932. As seen through the eyes of a precocious young girl named Masuko, the frontier town of Jiamusi and its inhabitants are by turns enchanting, bemusing, and horrifying. Takarabe skillfully captures Masuko’s voice with language that savors Manchukuo’s lush forests and vast terrain, but violence and murder are ever present, as much a part of the scenery as the grand Sungari River. Masuko recounts the “Heaven” of her early life in Jiamusi, a place so cold in winter her joints freeze as she walks to school. She accepts this world, with its gentle ways and terrible brutality, because it is the only home she has known. Masuko feels at ease wandering among the street vendors hawking their hot and sticky steamed cakes or watching the cook slaughter ducks for dinner, and takes pleasure in following the routines of her Chinese, Russian, and Japanese neighbors. Her world is shattered in 1945, when she and her family must flee their adopted home and struggle, along with other Japanese settlers, to return to Japan. This second half of the book, the “Hell” of refugee life, is heartbreaking and disturbing, yet described with ferocious honesty.
During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries priests from the Tateyama mountain area (Toyama Prefecture) brought paintings of the mountain, called Tateyama mandara, on campaigns throughout Japan that extolled its merits, drummed up warm-weather pilgrimage, and established venues for selling products and services. The images depict pilgrims, monks, animals, and supernatural beings occupying the mountain's landscape, thought to contain both hell and paradise. The local landscape was thus cast as a universalized portal to the other world and Tateyama preachers positioned themselves at its gateway as indispensable intermediaries to "salvation," a notion that encompassed a wide range of meanings, from enlightenment to temporary escape from hell. Drawing on methodologies from historical, art historical, and religious studies, this book untangles the complex premises and mechanisms operating in these pictorialisations of the mountain's mysteries and furthers our understanding of the rich complexity of pre-modern Japanese religion.