NEW Kyosai Japanese tattoo reference book - MUST HAVE!!

This auction is for a copy of a new publication of master Kawanabe Kyosai's work. If you can't afford to shell out over $300 for his Demons of Painting - this is the next best thing. Text is in Japanese but there are tons of high quality full color pages...plus it includes some great close ups of some of the smaller but no less intricate faces found in his work. Last but not least it features his entire scroll on the fart war - a whole village of people running around farting on each other, gathering butt dust in bags and chasing each other with it...women and children hiding under futon. Seriously hilarious. I saw it last year here in Tokyo at an exhibition on Humor in Japanese Art and have been looking for it in print ever since. They've finally published it in it's entirety. This book  is seriously a gem. Tons of brilliant monsters, demons, oni, animals, ghosts, evil spirits, haunted women, sprites - all the creatures of Japanese legend are captured here. This is a really cool book. One of my new favorites.

Kyosai was a student of Kuniyoshi and these two stand out among the painters from the floating world for their renditions of things strange, weird and frightening. Kyosai was an avid Sake drinker and an amazing storyteller, he enjoyed frightening his audiences and could always touch a nerve with his vivid imagination. He has been said to spare no canvas in his paintings, they are busy and multifaceted, the center object rarely being what captures the eye after the initial reaction of shock wears off. Hiding in the background are oni (Japanese mythological demons), ghosts, skeletons and blood hungry ghouls. (plus several things I can't identify). His artwork is brilliant for larger tattoo pieces.

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