Towering Rage

The Japanese title of this painting, Dohatsu-ten o tsuku, is an idiom that refers to a fury so powerful that it makes one’s hair stand on end. The term dohatsu-ten (literally, “angry-haired deva”) also evokes the image of a Buddhist deity with flame-like hair, including the category of beings known as Wisdom Kings or Myoo and the gate guardians called Nio. However, the figure in Towering Rage most closely resembles another deity, Bato Kannon (Horse-headed Avalokiteshvara), who is typically represented with three heads, fangs, horse-like teeth, and flame-like hair. Unlike Bato Kannon, it lacks a third eye or horse-head crown, and a pair of demon’s horns sprout from its head.

This powerful image was painted by Katsura Yuki, a prominent female artist active in the mid twentieth century. Katsura began to study art at age twelve, initially learning Japanese-style painting methods before turning to oil painting at age seventeen. By 1933, she had advanced to Japan’s avant-garde art circles. Though fiercely independent, Katsura achieved considerable notice by the early 1950s, when Towering Rage was painted. At the time, she was exploring the use of folkloric and religious imagery to satirize human nature and express resistance against injustice. This painting’s style, coloration, and subject embody an intense and disruptive energy. Transgressive and politically charged, it communicates Katsura’s desire to overturn existing conventions, and suggests that she was using art to explore her own power and identity.