DREAM SPECTRES by Jack Hunter

DREAM SPECTRES Reviews

• 
  Charles Dee Mitchell

  Ukiyo-e, Japanese color woodblock printmaking, was popular during the Edo period (1600 - 1867). Best known today are the landscapes and scenes of everyday life by Hiroshige and Hokusai, Hunter's book serves as something of a corrective to such a one-sided view of the industry that made up ukiyo-e. While erotic scenes and battle sequences had been part of the printmakers' repertoire for a century, it was during the 19th century that artists began to reflect the disruptions and unrest of Japanese society with more transgressive images of violence, the supernatural, and sex. Hokusai himself created a signature grotesque with his scene of cephlapod/human copulation in 1814.
  
  Beautiful abalone divers assaulted by octopi became a popular motif for a specialized market, but bloody scenes of battles and executions found wide distribution among all classes of collectors. These were drawn mostly from the Kabuki theater, and the decapitations and disembowelments in the prints reproduce the special effects that were becoming popular on the stage. But visual artists were able to go further in their blood-soaked imagery than stage artists.
  
  Tsukioka Yoshitoshi, born 1839, was the master of the atrocity print. In 1866 he teamed with another artist to produce "Famous Murders with Verse," also known as "The Sadistic Collection of Blood." These were both historical and mythical scenes of torture, rape, and murder. In the 1870's, Yoshitoshi contributed to the broadsheet nishiki-e that featured tabloid-style reports on the most lurid stories of the day. Government censors finally stepped in in 1877 with the publication, not by Yoshitoshi, of "The Sashimi Murder-Suicide Case," a gag-inducing story with a repulsive illustration heightened with a banner headline held by two Japanese-style cherubs.
  
  Japanese visions of hell, ghosts, demons, and monsters date to the 12th century, but these motifs also had a great resurgence among 19th century ukiyo-e artists. Hokusai dabbled in the supernatural, but the master was Kuniyoshi, an artist who worked the monsters and demons into complex action scenes and elaborate designs.
  
  But this is a good book in an unsatisfying format. It is 8.5 inches square with multiple color images per page. The more complex compositions are hard to decipher, and the barebones text that accompanies the illustrations gives only the barest hint of the social, political, and artistic milieu in which the artists worked. But with those cmplaints noted, it is still the most complete representation of the extremes of the Japanese imagination published in English. In it you can see the roots of images now popular in the more outre manga and J-horror films, as well as samurai and yakuza films that range from the most artistic productions to those films shot directly for Japanese video,
• 
  Regina

  Beautiful and disturbing ukiyo-e artwork from Japan, most from the mid-19th century. This book contains rare and brightly painted scenes of sex, death, the grisly and bloody, torture, demons, ghosts, and battles. Not the typical poetry and beauty one finds in most museums. Stunning collection of unusual work.