San Antonio College Library

Yoshitoshi's artistic career traces a period of social and political change in Japan, which opened its doors to trade with the West in 1853, the year that he published his first woodblock print. As tumult shook the foundations of old Japan, Yoshitoshi cleaved to tradition in his choice of subject matter, drawing upon literature, history, and mythology, the warrior class, and the Buddhist notion of "the floating world" to preserve and celebrate Japanese...