The Eye Of Atrocity: Superviolent Art By Yoshitoshi (Ukiyo-e Master Series)

Tsukioka Yoshitoshi, apprenticed to ukiyo-e master Kuniyoshi since his adolescence, was twenty years old when he first began to make sketches of severed heads and dismembered corpses. Soon he would start to incorporate this imagery into his work, and his vivid and bloody battle scenes quickly caught the public eye. All of Yoshitoshi's ukiyo-e series between 1863 and 1870 would include a quantity of his trademark scenes of carnage, in particular Eimei Nijuhasshuku (1866-68), a collaboration with fellow artist Ochiai Yoshiiku. Sometimes referred to as "The Sadistic Collection Of Blood”, this series was an unashamed exercise in atrocity which took the concept of muzan-e ("cruelty prints”) to new extremes of violence and gore. In 1868, Yoshitoshi was a first-hand witness to the Battle of Ueno, a cataclysmic clash which further inspired him to create new images of evisceration and decapitation.

THE EYE OF ATROCITY, edited by Jack Hunter (who also edited the ground-breaking extreme ukiyo-e anthology "Dream Spectres”), collects and considers over 80 of the most blood-drenched and disturbing artworks produced by Yoshitoshi during his career, presented in large-format and full-colour throughout. Second in a dynamic new series presenting the cutting edge of 19th century Japanese art.