About this work
A young man sits quietly with a fan in hand beneath the boughs of a willow tree, the summer moon hanging above him. He is Shi Jin — on the eve of fleeing his home village to join a band of outlaws — and the only thing that betrays the turbulence of his moment is the extraordinary nine-dragon tattoo covering his arms, torso, and thighs.
Yoshitoshi's design is elegantly spare, with a simple background that focuses all attention on the human figure. Inky shadows from the willow frame the composition, while the moonlight catches the sinuous coil of the tattooed dragons across pale skin — a visual tension between stillness and violence, calm posture and fierce ornament, that is entirely deliberate. The figures in the Moon series are drawn with beautiful linework that conveys a real sense of individual character, gesture, and emotion, and special printing techniques such as embossing and burnishing add a sumptuous touch where appropriate.
This print is number six in *One Hundred Aspects of the Moon*, a colour woodblock print created in 1885.
The series has been described as "a pilgrimage to Japan's glorious past," depicting figures from Japanese and Chinese mythology, folklore, history, literature and theatre. Shi Jin — known as Kumonryū, "The Nine-Dragoned One" — is the outlaw-hero of the Chinese novel *Shui hu Zhuan* ("The Water Margin"), who captures bandits attacking his village only to join forces with them upon learning of the official corruption they fled.
The series was created during the final seven years of Yoshitoshi's life, and each print presents a distinct subject while sharing a recurring motif — the moon, appearing either prominently or in subtle form.
In order to carry forward the tradition of ukiyo-e, Yoshitoshi drew stylistic inspiration from the very forces that were rendering it obsolete — namely, Western art and photography.
The *One Hundred Aspects of the Moon* remains the most successful and most famous of Yoshitoshi's print series.
This print rewards contemplative spaces: a study, a reading room, a hallway where the light shifts through the day. The cool blue-green palette and the vertical composition settle into almost any wall without demanding attention — until they catch it completely. It speaks to the viewer who brings some knowledge of the story, but it doesn't require it; the image works as pure mood, a figure suspended between belonging and flight, held in the peculiar stillness of a summer night before a decisive act. The series depicts figures from Japanese and Chinese mythology, folklore, history, literature, and theatre, each captured at a moment in time and held suspended by a poetic dialogue with the moon — and this print is one of its most quietly charged examples.
