Tsukioka Yoshitoshi

Yoshitoshi was an artist of rare talent and was extremely popular in his time. He made prints of historical, heroic, erotic, and sometimes sadistic subjects as well as scenes of contemporary life and its increasing Westernization. He is sometimes referred to as "splendidly decadent". Yoshitoshi was born in 1839, during the last decades of feudalism in Japan. He became an apprentice of the great Ukiyo-e master Kuniyoshi (1797-1861) around the age of eleven and published his first full-color print when fourteen. By the time he was twnety-six, he was ranked the tenth most popular Ukiyo-e arts of the day.