Dr. Pauline Ota’s Third Thursday Lecture on the ukiyo-e triptych known as Takiyasha the Witch and the Skeleton Spectre (c. 1843-47) by Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1798-1861) offered not only meticulous research and thoughtful discussion of the composition’s major components, subjects, sources of inspiration, and cultural associations, but also a refreshing twist. When viewing this triptych in the British Museum’s collection, it is impossible not to be enthralled by the outrageous skeleton demon (gashadokuro) that dominates two-thirds of the composition. Its giant upper body and skull looms large out of a mysterious inky background, destroying the hanging sudare screens in its path as though they are as soft as silky cloth in order to observe the battling warriors in the foreground. Summoned by the magic powers of Princess Takiyasha, the demon has appeared and is caught mid motion, nearly nose to nose with the mighty warrior Ōya no Tarō Mitsukuni who pauses from his battle with Araimaru, sensing something in the air. One imagines there must be quite a story behind this suspenseful moment and dark power of a moving skeleton. Ota’s study, however, not only investigated the skeleton imagery, but also the composition’s focus on Princess Takiyasha who is depicted in the leftmost print, standing with an opened scroll clasped in her hands. She appears authoritative and calm and is set off spatially from the tense drama and action playing out to her right. Ota’s lecture offered important insight on how the work communicates much more than a fanciful tale of a monstrous skeleton demon or a legend of scary magic. To be specific, it provided evidence for why the Takiyasha character is likely the real star or point of the composition.
The skeleton demon is highly entertaining, and Ota did justice to its creepy (and one could say also comical, even loveable) impact. She noted how Kuniyoshi could have encountered any number of skeleton images in works ranging from Buddhist paintings, illustrated books, such as The Illustrated Night Parade of a Hundred Demons by Toriyama Sekien (1712-88), paintings such as Skeleton Performing Zazen on Waves (1781-89) by Maruyama Ōkyo (1733-1795), or anatomical texts of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, including translated European texts. Ota clarified specifically how Kuniyoshi’s skeleton spectre is both more anatomically realistic in some ways and uniquely creative and fantastic when compared to others. She also shared research by Suzuki Jūzō who has found that there existed popular performances in the Asakusa district by Yanagawa Itchōsai (Bungo no Daijō, n.d.) featuring life-sized skeleton puppets.
Ota’s radically fresh interpretations of the triptych stems from careful examination of the representation of Princess Takiyasha and a close reading of the composition’s likely literary source, the popular printed book story written by Santō Kyōden (1761-1816) titled The Tale of Utō Yasutaka’s Loyalty (Uto Yasutaka chūgiden, 1806, with illustrations by Utagawa Toyokuni (1769-1825). The work would stretch into a multi-volume set with Books Two and Three completed in 1849 and 1860 respectively by Shōtei Kinsui [1797-1863]) after the time of Kuniyoshi’s triptych. The essential plot imagines the lives (the sufferings, ambitions, and question of loyalty) of the young daughter (known later as Takiyasha) and son (Tarō, later Shōguntarō Taira no Yoshikado) left behind after the failed insurrection led by their late father Taira no Masakado (903-940). The name Utō Yasutaka in the title refers to a character in the story who, along with his wife, tries to dissuade Tarō and Takiyasha from attempting to continue their father’s insurrection. The intersecting storylines of these characters forms an underlying theme of loyalty and the potential turmoil and suffering attached to it. Ota’s lecture succinctly summarized these complex narratives and clarified how Kuniyoshi has quite selectively designed and altered the literary scene it references.
It was also learned that the story of Princess Takiyasha and her younger half-brother Tarō could be given different creative twists. There is a triptych by designed by Kuniyoshi and roughly contemporary with his Takiyasha triptych of c. 1843-47, that represents Shōguntarō Taira no Yoshikado with Iga Jutarō and Takiyasha-hime, Watching a Battle of Frogs, 1843 (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston). As Ota pointed out, this triptych depicts Tarō magically transformed by the Toad demon into a dangerous person hell-bent on restarting his father’s insurrection. He is positioned center stage (and center print) as the powerful one, not Princess Takiyasha. In Santō Kyōden’s tale, Masakado’s daughter becomes a nun at the tender age of sixteen after the suffering she has experienced and assumes the name Nyogetsuni. She later transforms into a powerful witch and takes on the name of Princess Takiyasha due to the influence of Tarō. In this triptych, however, the inscription states that Takiyasha, not wanting her brother to use her toad magic to attract allies, chooses to become a nun instead. According to Ota, the plot has been switched. The toad magic leads Takiyasha to recede and become a nun instead of inducing her to change from the nun that she was into a formidable witch who believes women can be as great as powerful generals. Although kabuki plays were not discussed at length in Ota’s lecture, the Takiyasha character in the kabuki play “Masakado (Shinobi yoru koi no kusemono)” first performed in 1836 at the Ichimuraza, appears as a courtesan named Kisaragi who attempts to seduce Mitsukuni and turn him into an ally before her ruse fails. A fierce battle with Mitsukuni’s forces ensues that tests her black magic to the limit.
Supernatural touches of eerie horror appear to be threaded through the story, not only with Yasutaka and his wife continuing their efforts to influence Tarō and Takiyasha while alive and as ghosts, but also with a “Flesh Fungus Immortal” who appears in the guise of a toad demon and captures Tarō. The transformation of Takiyasha’s identity from a Buddhist nun to a fierce witch occurs after nightly pilgrimages involving offerings of a head on a pike (obtained through the assistance of her devoted retainer Araimaru). In the literary tale, there are warring skeleton armies instead of one giant skeleton demon at the final battle when Ōya no Taro Mitsukuni squashes all hope of another insurrection and defeats Takiyasha. As the Takiyasha compositions appeared at a time when the government Tenpō Reforms of 1841-43 were clamping down especially on kabuki and prints of kabuki actors and courtesans, it is tempting to think Kuniyoshi was joining his fellow ukiyo-e artists in plumbing new subjects and styles. Kuniyoshi, however, was especially creative, developing new genres of prints ranging from warrior prints, hero prints, historical legends, or prints featuring cats, animals, ghosts or witty new ways to create actor “portraits.” In this context, it is easy to imagine a political subtext or allegorical meaning behind the Takiyasha triptych whereby the giant skeleton demon representing all dead spirits looms menacingly over the warrior characters that could be interpreted as representing the government or the ruling elite. The joke would lie in the fact that they seem unaware of the danger they are in. Alternately, the Mitsukuni character, associated with the Fujiwara clan, might represent a bakufu or military government that thinks it is squelching insurrection while oblivious to a larger social unrest.
While hidden political meaning is easily proposed but difficult to prove (that would be the beauty of such expressions), Ota’s interpretations for the triptych arise from visual and literary evidence that logically and convincingly raises questions about the meaning of the Takiyasha character. In the triptych composition with the skeleton demon, Takiyasha is strong and elegant, if somewhat wild, in her aristocratic clothing and hair, and someone to be feared. She has summoned the gashadokuro skeleton demon to fight off Mitsukuni in the ruins of her father’s Sōma palace and calmly, authoritatively gazes down at the struggling warriors with steely purpose. While sharing the foreground plane with the warriors, the composition positions her above the men. Her form fills the left print and is dramatically framed by the busted lattice screen and swooping remnants of the torn screen. In the tale, the possessed Takiyasha might be described as carrying a sword indicative of her violent persona or having a mirror around her neck symbolizing her ability to see into other realms, but such symbolic devices are not needed here. Takiyasha is seen as a human, still beautiful, who once enjoyed wealth and status and suffered much, reflected deeply, and in this particular composition, attained an unearthly power.
Ota’s lecture effectively elicited a new response to the Takiyasha figure as the true (hidden?) subject of the triptych. She appropriately placed the Takiyasha character depicted here in the context of a “tragic anti-heroine” genre or the category of “hidden” valiant women who support male “heroes.” It would not do to reveal too much here of what will surely be a fascinating, rich publication on this triptych and its literary and visual sources. Suffice it to say that Ota’s lecture, bearing a title referencing the book Wicked and the popular musical and film it spawned, convincingly questioned an underlying assumption that the Takiyasha “witch” —plying her dark magic—must be wicked. Ota’s study made the case that in truth, as a distant historical figure—the daughter of the leader of a failed rebellion—Takiyasha became a vehicle for nineteenth-century writers and audiences to imagine and contemplate a broad array of human emotions and human nature that her experience would have prompted.
Helen M. Nagata
Associate Professor of Art History, School of Art and Design
Northern Illinois University