Yoshitoshi's moon prints on display in Holland

LEIDEN, Netherlands (Kyodo) The museum Sieboldhuis in the Dutch city of Leiden is holding a unique show of Tsukioka Yoshitoshi's "One Hundred Aspects of the Moon."

A visitor looks at an exhibition featuring Tsukioka Yoshitoshi's "One Hundred Aspects of the Moon" series of prints at the Sieboldhuis museum in the Dutch city of Leiden. KYODO PHOTO

"It only rarely happens that a collector is willing to buy all the prints of one set from a certain artist," the guest curator of the show, Chris Uhlenbeck, said at the exhibit opening at the recently renovated Sieboldhuis. "That it happens in Holland is even a greater honor for us."

The museum was home to scientist Philipp von Siebold, who once worked in 19th century Japan. His monumental house displays not only artifacts of his life and work but also temporary expositions.

The prints of Yoshitoshi (1839-1892), made between 1885 and 1891 at the request of publisher Akiyama Buemon, depicts elements of Chinese culture, Japanese folktales and recent history.

The latter was rather exceptional as the government did not like events from recent history shown to the public.

Still, this attention to the recent past was a subject that became popular after the start of the Meiji Era in 1868, when artists tried to imitate the Western way of looking at the world around them, according to Uhlenbeck.

Some 10 years ago, Elise Wessels, together with her husband, started to collect Japanese art.

"I love the colors, the way the themes are depicted," Elise Wessels said while looking around the exhibition room. "At the same time, it is very hard to choose my favorite. They all have something special."

Their collection, particularly of 20th century Japanese art (Yoshitoshi's works are an exception to what they usually collect), has become so extensive that next year it will be made available to the public.

The Tokyo-born Yoshitoshi was influenced heavily by Utagawa Kuniyoshi, whose studio he entered in 1850.

He worked as an illustrator for the newspaper industry for a while, but he became most famous for his masterly depiction of ghosts in 1865 in the series "One Hundred Ghost Stories from China and Japan."

Closely linked to this Japanese belief in ghosts is the story of the fox, or "inari," which can transform into a human.

"At the age of 50, it can take the form of a woman, at 100 the appearance of a young and beautiful girl, and at 1,000 years becomes . . . the Celestial Fox of golden color with nine tails, when it will have attained all the secrets of nature," Will Edmunds once wrote in his book about clues to Chinese and Japanese art.

Yoshitoshi's fox, in "Musashi Plain Moon" ("Musashi no Tsuki") bends over the long grass, the full moon shining over its head. Musashi was at that time known as a place where foxes would assemble.

In this famous work, Yoshitoshi applied the "atenashi bokashi" technique in which pigment and water were applied separately to the surface. This created a misty effect that further enhanced its mythical atmosphere.

The same mysterious atmosphere reigns in "The Moon of the Moor -- Yasumasa" ("Harano no Tsuki") -- showing Fujiwara no Yasumasa (958-1036), a famous musician at the Heian court. While he is playing his flute, we see him being followed by his brother, Kidomaru, who wants to steal his beautiful yellow robe.

The story goes that only when Yasumasa arrives home that he sees his brother, who couldn't carry out the plan as he was bewitched by the beautiful music. Yasumasa then orders Kidomaru to ask him for clothes another time in the future.

The subject was so dear to Yoshitoshi that he used it in several of his other works.

For the onlooker, the work is so finely detailed that one almost hears the flute's high pitch and the rustling of the grass when taking in "The Moon of the Moor."

The last of the series of 100 prints shows haiku legend Matsuo Basho.

Although he uses the symbol of the moon in all his works, this series specifically makes it clear how much meaning there is for him in the image of the moon.

For Yoshitoshi, the moon is linked with Kannon (The Goddess of Mercy) as well as with the North Star. It is even the subject of his death poem.