Kuniyoshi: Shoki Threatening Demons (Sold)

Artist: Utagawa Kuniyoshi
Title:  Shoki Threatening Demons
Date: ca. 1858

Shoki san jaki no sokukô. Shoki poses dramatically, sword at the ready in his right hand. He is rendered in the style of a sumi painting, done all in black and grey. He directs his glare towards an inset cartouche of a man being supported by three friends. A woman guides them with her lantern. The subtext would be that the man in the cartouche has gotten himself way too drunk in the pleasure quarters, so the demon that Shoki might be battling here is one of drunken excess. Shôki-san jaki ni sokukô (Shôki-san immediately acting against malicious spirit with a good deed). The text: “Sake ga yû, kokoro no oni no tsuno  orete, atode shooki (Shôki) ni wabiru namayoi.” The rough translation: “A drunken man whose horns of malicious spirit have broken (meaning: had overcome his malicious weakness) apologizes later in his good  conscience.” There is the double meaning of the play of the word “Shôki”--meaning Shôki the man and the other “in his good conscience”.

SKU: KUC200