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May: Shoki the Demon Queller Riding on a Tiger, Subjugating Goblins, from the series "Of the Twelve Months: the Fifth (Junikagetsu no uchi: gogatsu)"
Kawanabe Kyôsai (Japanese, 1831-1889)
1887
- Medium
- Color woodblock prints; oban triptych
- Classification
- Dimensions
- 35.7 × 73.2 cm (14 1/16 × 28 7/8 in.)
- Culture
- Japan
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Arts of Asia
- Credit line
- Nathalie Gookin Fund in memory of Frederick W. Gookin
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its subject is for older viewers (war, death, the Passion, drink or the like). How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
The tiger clutches one ferocious goblin in his jaws while Shōki’s sword subdues the others. “May” is printed in English on the right edge of the design, perhaps in an effort to make the print seem more fashionable at a moment when Western influence in Japan was growing. Images of Shōki are often hung to celebrate the Boys’ Day festival, which takes place in May.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
