Ghosts & Demons

Japan, 1880s, the lamps low and the stories worse. Ghosts and demons haunt Japanese woodblock prints of the supernatural, most from the decade of Tsukioka Yoshitoshi’s One Hundred Aspects of the Moon. That series, published between 1885 and 1892, pairs the moon with ghosts, warriors, poets and goblins: the hag of the lonely house, the Bon festival moon, Takakura’s moon, the moonlight patrol, the moon after rain on the mountain. Around it gather onryo, the vengeful ghosts of Japanese drama, the rain woman Ame Onna, and the regent Hojo Takatoki tormented by tengu, the long-nosed mountain goblins. Fine carving, soft grey and indigo and a great deal of night leave these prints quietly unsettling. Framed in black in a library, they reward close looking, and a little courage.