In the field of literature and drama, in addition to the love of obsessive men and women, the most used theme is ghost and magic, which is also an important inspiration for ukiyo-e painters to use creations, such as the "Tokaido Four Valleys Strange Talk" in the north and south of the Fourth Tsuruya House, Qu Ting Ma Qin's "Tsubaki Says Bow Zhang Yue", "Namsuri Ritsumi Eight Dogs" Katsushika Hokusai Strange Talk Series [Hundred Stories]
"Hyakuto" is a collective soul-summoning game of the Edo period. At night, people gather in a dark room and light a hundred oil lamps next door, and then everyone takes turns telling ghost stories, and after each story is told, they will extinguish an oil lamp until the last lamp is extinguished, which will attract ghosts.
Katsushika Hokusai's creative achievements in ghost legends are also very large, and he was the first painter to integrate the stories from "Hundred Stories" into ukiyo-e;
In Katsushika Hokusai's Hundred Tales series, "Kiku" is from the strange talk [Riyashiki], which tells the story of a maid named Aju who accidentally smashed one of the master's treasured heirlooms, one of the eleven plates (the other saying is that the plate was not broken, the master hid it), and then was hanged by the master and thrown into the well (the other is that Aju committed suicide by throwing herself into the well), and since then, the sound of Aju counting plates has been heard every night at the bottom of the well, "One... Two...... Three "sorrowful and miserable count to the ninth and begin to cry, and then count from the beginning;
Katsushika Hokusai's work [Hundred Stories Of Kiku] This painting is exactly the appearance of Aju, her long neck built up by plates, pale and blue, with resentment in her mouth, slowly crawling out of the well...
Katsushika Hokusai's works 【Hyakugoku Kiku】
【Hundred Stories Rock】 The painting created by the Edo period playwright "The Strange Tale of the Four Valleys of the East Sea" by the Edo period playwright "The Strange Tale of the Four Valleys of the East Sea" tells the story of the woman A-Yan (who is said to be the ugliest woman in Japan) who was disgusted by her husband, and finally poisoned by her husband, so she became a ghost and ghost wandering in the human world to take revenge; in the painting, A-Yan's husband escapes to Snake Mountain to take refuge in order to avoid the revenge of A-Yan's ghost, but does not want A-Yan's ghost to appear through the lantern to take revenge, Andkatsu Hokusai designs the picture as a close-up of the lantern, in which the ghost's eyelids droop, Because of the poisoning, the face is floating, the hair is falling off, and the broken lantern is like ah Yan's big mouth, telling his own unjust wail, as if he can swallow the negative man in an instant, and the husband is terrified in the face of his wife who has been poisoned by himself.
Katsushika Hokusai's works 【Hyakugoshi Iwa】
In ancient times, the Japanese believed that some phenomena that could not be explained by science were ghosts and demons, and the word "yokai" was introduced to Japan from China in the Edo period, before which the Japanese language was called "chemicals" and "monsters", and in the last years of the shogunate, social contradictions became more acute, the excessive tenpo reform, the corruption of the government, the earthquake... Making the crime rate a high incidence of people's hearts disordered, turbulent and all this is also reflected in the works of ukiyo-e, at the same time strange about the popularity of magic novels and dramas, but also stimulated the imagination and creativity of ukiyo-e painters, under the painter's pen, the well-known stories have a vivid and vivid image, these ghosts and monsters are like the daily people of Edo, because of all kinds of bizarre, resentful, reincarnation, hatred, and the present world to those who do evil, but with infinite nostalgia for the world, In an era when there was no film or television, these ukiyo-e paintings showed people one story after another.
Katsushika Hokusai's works 【Hundred Stories】