KUNIYOSHI-
THE LEGENDARY ART OF THE SUIKODEN
By Lynn Seriguchi and C.W. Eldridge

Japan in the 1800s. After decades of civil warfare between rival clans, a victor emerged: the shogun. By then, Japan had had two centuries of military dictatorship and experienced relative peace. Under the strict social system imposed by the shogun and designed to maintain his government, there were four classes: the warrior class which protected and ruled the land, the farmers who cultivated rice and fed the nation, the artisans who created the products which supported the people and the merchant class which handled money. The merchant class was the lowest on the social scale, because the handling of money was seen as vulgar and dirty.

The shogun demanded that every year the feudal lords spend part of the year at Edo (now called Tokyo), the shogun's center of power. Every year each lord and his vast entourage of servants and samurai warriors traveled from their countryside villa on the long road to Edo to take up part-time residence. The noblemen were required to live two extravagant lives, one supporting their lifestyle in Edo and the other at their feudal homes. Vast sums of money were spent, keeping the feudal lords poor enough that they had less resources to fight among themselves or to fight the shogun.

This process also gave rise to a middle class in the town of Edo. Once a small fishing village, Edo grew into a bustling urban center. A government bureaucracy developed to control growth and maintain order. Under the heavy tax burden of the shogun, many farmers came to Edo looking for work. Some became the artisans and craftsmen servicing the growing demands for goods and services for these temporary inhabitants. The merchant class, though the lowest, began to accumulate great wealth. Unfortunately, there were strict rules on how they could live and where they could spend their money. With no chance of ever rising up in the society, the attitude was to live for today and pursue sensual pleasures. The place where the merchant class and townspeople could spend freely was in the pleasure quarters of Edo. There the brothels, theater, music and entertainment centers grew. During this time, woodblock print techniques had been perfected, and beautiful prints depicting life in Edo were eagerly bought.
.
Into this era came one of the best and most productive woodblock print artists to ever live. His childhood name was Yoshisaburo. Born in 1797 or 1798 (reports vary on the exact year) to a silk-dying merchant, Yoshisaburo showed signs of artistic talent at an early age. His artwork caught the attention of Toyokuni I, then the head of the influential Utagawa-style art school, and, at about twelve years old, Yoshisaburo was accepted as a student.

The Utagawa school of art was founded by Utagawa Toyoharu (1735-1814). It became the dominant school of art during the Edo period. Although Toyoharu himself did not limit his subject matter to portraiture of entertainers, the Utagawa school was known for this extremely popular genre of prints. Toyokuni I was one of the many famous woodblock print artists who had been Toyoharu's students. Toyokuni I later became head of this school, and for many years concentrated his talents in the designing of dramatic and beautiful prints of actors and entertainers.

After several years of apprenticeship and study, Yoshisaburo was presented with the name of Utagawa Kuniyoshi, Kuni from Toyokuni, and Yoshi from Yoshisaburo. The name Utagawa added to the name designates a follower of the school's style and education. It was an honor to be bestowed with the name. Several other artists, such as Kunimasa, Kunisada and Kunitora also took on the prefix Kuni as well as the family name Utagawa.

It was about 1814, and, although he was but seventeen years old, Kuniyoshi was considered a full-fledged artist out on his own. Kuniyoshi struggled for thirteen long years as an artist, drawing pictures for sale or for books. He drew little recognition, and perhaps even sold tatami mats to eke out a living. He was the typical starving artist.

His big breakthrough came in 1827, when Kuniyoshi was about thirty. He was commissioned to create full-color illustrations for a book entitled Tsuzoku Suikoden Goketsu Hyakuhachinin No Hitori (The 108 Heroes of the Popular Suikoden All Told), or Suikoden for short. The Suikoden was an adaptation of Shuihu zhuan (Stories of the Water Margin), a fourteenth-century Chinese novel about Chinese rebels who fought against a corrupt government establishment. The name of the novel, Shuihu zhuan, comes from the name of the rebel's hideout by a river's edge. There were to be many other versions of this novel through the years. An earlier edition had been illustrated by the great Hokusai, but with black-and-white prints.

The 1827 version of the novel was extremely popular, because it reflected the events of the time. Even as the merchant class was growing in financial power, they were oppressed by the shogunate government and lived under the thumb of any samurai who could punish them or cut their heads off at a whim. While the shogun amassed more and more land, he displaced many samurai, who now had no clan affiliation. Some masterless samurai, or ronin, became farmers, but many drifted to the city looking for work. These unemployed warriors still exerted the power of their class over the lower classes, harassing and threatening them. Some samurai joined together to become criminal gangs, an early version of the yakuza. In the Suikoden novel, the rebels fought the evils and injustices of the establishment. They were like Robin Hood and his band of merry men, sometimes robbing the rich and giving to the poor. Being the pulp fiction of the time, the novel was filled with daring deeds, romantic and dramatic tales of gore, bloody battles and heroism. The lower classes loved Kunoyoshi's dramatic full-color designs, catapulting him to fame.

Many of the heroes portrayed in the Suikoden are dressed in beautifully detailed Chinese clothing. But some of them are nearly naked, clothed only from the waist down and showing tattoos. It is thought that Kuniyoshi himself was tattooed. In any event, the tattoos in the prints are filled with symbols of heroism and virtue. His designs were dramatic, filled with detail and very different from other artists.

A typical print from this series has several items in common. In the corner is a long, decorated rectangle called the cartouche. This is the title of the print. A smaller plain rectangle next to the cartouche is the hero's name. In the body of the print is the story behind the design, written in Japanese. The text of this print reads:

Born in Beijing. His face is whiter than snow.
He had a tattoo of flowers all over his body.
In Tai Anshu Tensai,

On the emperor's birthday
at the emperor's celebration,
Jingen, a sumo wrestler who had a title of Ozeki,
and who was about three meters [about nine feet] tall,
said he would fight with all his might, but
was defeated by Ensei's wonderful performance.
Jingen and his apprentices tried
to steal the reward from the governor, but Ensei scattered them away.1

1Translation of the Japanese text courtesy of Yuko Okubo, University of California, Berkeley.

Note Kuniyoshi's signature. The publisher's seal is sometimes next to Kuniyoshi's signature but may be found elsewhere in the print. Some prints have a censor's seal, or kiwame. Kiwame, or "approved," meaning the print was inspected for treasonous or immoral content, and passed. Although some woodblock prints will show no seal, all prints sold to the public were supposed to have a censor's seal.

This particular print is the story of Roshi Ensei, a man of superheroic strength. He has just won a wrestling match with a championship wrestler named Jingen. The students of Jingen's school are angry with the outcome of the match, and grab the tournament prize. Roshi Ensei is portrayed here fighting off the students.

On Roshi Ensei's back and leg are images that look like a pair of Pekinese dogs. These are called shishi, or lion-dogs. Adapted from Chinese mythology, these curly-haired lion-dogs even today are seen standing at the gates of Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples. They guard the entrances and repel evil. On Roshi's right leg is the lion-dog with an open mouth. This is Arashishi, his mouth open to scare off demons. The other image on his back is Komainu, whose closed mouth keeps in the good spirits.

Also on his back are peonies, symbols of good fortune and high honors. Peonies, lion-dogs and waterfalls are often seen together in Japanese designs and are associated with a noh play dealing with a pilgrimage to a Buddhist site in China. According to legend, a mother lioness tossed her cubs off the stone bridge as a means of testing her cubs' strength.2

2Symbols of Japan, by Merrily Baird, page 147-148.

Waterfalls themselves are sacred places, and their images in art are associated with acts of extreme discipline and physical self-denial by monks. It was believed that by standing under waterfalls in the cold the monks could gain access to the spirit world.3

3Symbols of Japan, page 43.

The man under the waterfall is Mongaku Shonin. According to legend, Mongaku Shonin had been in love with a married woman, whom he pursued and whose husband he demanded that she kill. Rather than betray her marriage and her honor, the woman tricked her husband into leaving on a trip. She then told Mongaku Shonin the husband was at home on that night and to come kill him. She dressed as a man and pretended to be asleep. Thinking it was the husband, Mongaku Shonin beheaded her. Finding he had really killed his beloved, Mongaku, in horror, ran away and became a wandering monk.

The tattoo images are engraved on white skin. It is a longtime Chinese and Japanese belief that lighter skin reflects higher social class.

In several of this series of prints, the heroes are tattooed with dragons. Dragons are long associated with male power or virility. Dragons can take many forms, but typically have the scales and form of a snake, the horns of a stag and the claws of a bird. The dragon in one print is definitely more snake-like than the other.

Commonly, dragons are paired with either water or cloud designs, showing their ability to live in either environment. Dragons typically exhale plumes of red fire.

Another theme in Kuniyoshi's prints is the sea. In some of the prints, the heroes are struggling in the water, while in others, the sea is part of the tattoo. In this print, the forms of a lobster, fish and octopus are floating among water motifs. The lobster is a symbol of good fortune and longevity. The octopus can be associated with good health, and the fish, if it is a carp, is a symbol of perseverance and strength. In the print for this story, the hero is a restaurant worker chasing a customer who is trying to leave the inn without paying for his meal.

These are only a few of the images Kuniyoshi incorporated in these tattoo prints. He also designed images of fantastic creatures drawn from Japanese legends and tales, as well as from his own imagination.

The Suikoden craze sparked by this publication catapulted Kuniyoshi to fame. He was able to develop his own style of design, breaking the tradition of relatively stagnant-looking actor prints. Kuniyoshi would do other series of the Suikoden novel as well as start a distinctive series of warrior prints. Other woodblock print artists such as Kunisada, a contemporary of Kuniyoshi, and Yoshitoshi, an artist who followed late in the 1800s, would follow the theme of tattooed warriors.

The Suikoden craze in Edo also inspired many townspeople to get tattoos. Tattoos became common among the firefighters of Edo and the okodate (street knights), local Edo men who fought for the rights of their fellow citizens. Both groups of men were idolized as physically and morally strong, righteous and noble in their protection of the common folk. Other Edo folk followed suit in having themselves tattooed either with copies of their heroes' tattoos or entire print designs. Soon it became a common sight in Edo. Tattooing became so popular that official edicts were instituted to regulate them, but the custom remained. Tattooing expanded with the opening of Japan to foreign commerce late in the 1800s. Regulations were lifted only after World War II and its new influx of foreigners. Many of the brilliant tattoos of today have been influenced, whether knowingly or not, by Kuniyoshi's wonderful designs. These images can give the wearer and the viewer an appreciation of his world and the world of Japanese art.