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Description
Back to back print. A man in a priest's robes and headdress cups the chin of a young boy standing beside him; a rosary dangles from his right wrist. The boy, dressed in traveling clothes, grasps the priest's wrist and lays his face in the man's hand; his staff and hat lie discarded on the ground. A maple tree frames the image; its falling leaves add a note of melancholy to the scene. The story of Kato Saemon Shigeuji, a wealthy lord in Kyushu during the Ahikaga period, was the subject of ballads, puppet plays, and Noh dramas. Returning home one night he saw his wife and a companion playing go, a Japanese game similar to checkers. While they appeared quite friendly, their long hair was writhing like snakes, hissing and biting at each other. This sight so saddened him that he left his home the next morning and became a priest at Mount Koya, taking the name of Karukaya. His wife searched for him for many years and finally reached the temple where he lived. Since women could not enter the temple precincts, she sent Ishidomaru, her son, to make inquiries. He met his father unwittingly, but Karukaya refused to recognize his son, even when the boy recognized a mole over his father's eye which his mother said would identify him. Yoshitoshi touchingly conveys the pathos of this scene as a boy clutches his father's hand and the father turns away with a gesture of resignation. The Twenty-four Accomplishments was begun in May 1881 and completed in 1887. Some of the prints first published in 1881 were reissued with different colors when the entire group was published as a set. The entire set was republished by Matsuki Heikichi between 1893 and 1895, after Yoshitoshi's death, with altered signatures and completely different, paler colors, sometimes with keyblock changes. The texts on the prints are Ryutei Tanehiko II, using the signature 'Tentendojin.' His words are poetic and allusive, and they covey a verbal equivalent of the mood of Yoshitoshi's picture. The circumstances of the publication are unkown: it is not clear whether Tanehiko wrote for Yoshitoshi's picture, or if Yoshitoshi illustrated Tanehiko's text. (Ref. Keyes, Roger, and George Kuwayama, "The Bizarre Imagery of Yoshitoshi: The Herbert R. Cole Collection," p. 45)
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