Kyōsai hyakki gadan

Kyōsai hyakki gadan 暁斎百鬼画談

FSC-GR-780.299

Commentary by Oikawa Shigeru

Posted December 5, 2016

Original unedited text in Japanese follows

Although a posthumous publication, Kyōsai hyakki gadan is one of Kawanabe Kyōsai’s most representative works. The expression hyakki gadan (百鬼画談) in the title refers to an illustrated tale featuring many, or “one hundred,” ghosts (yōkai 妖怪) and other monsters (bakemono 化け物). The most celebrated of such tales is the Hyakki yagyō (百鬼夜行) scroll housed in the subtemple Shinjuan at the Kyoto temple Daitokuji (大徳寺真珠庵), which is attributed to Tosa Mitsunobu (active 1500s) and is today designated a national treasure. Later works such as Hyakki yagyō zu (百鬼夜行図 Night parade of one hundred demons) by Toriyama Sekien (1712–1788) basically take the Shinjuan text as their starting point. While Kyōsai hyakki gadan (Kyōsai’s illustrated tales of one hundred ghosts and monsters) faithfully follows the Shinjuan tradition in its depiction of diverse specters, the development of the story is different in Kyōsai’s work.

A divergence from the Shinjuan artistic lineage is evident in Kyōsai’s own innovation of combining the pictorial tradition of hyakki yagyō with practice of hyaku monogatari. In hyaku monogatari (百物語), or the telling of “one hundred tales,” people would gather after sunset and listen to a storyteller recounting ghost stories. The storyteller would then extinguish a candle after each tale. Kyōsai’s book opens with a scene of a hyaku monogatari: monsters would appear one by one as each candle in the room is blown out to form a phantomic parade. In the fourth illustrated opening, an army of skeletons rush from the right to the left from a cloud of darkness, and this is followed in the next opening with the depiction of demons, the wrathful Buddhist guardian deity Fudō Myōō (不動明王), and elephant and toad monsters emerging from the left. The parade continues with monsters constructed from musical instruments; Nurarihyon, a specter in the form of an old man with a gourd-shaped head and wearing Buddhist robes; the ghost monk Aobōzu 青坊主; the faceless ghost Nopperabō (滑瓢); the “Blue Lady,” Aonyōbō (青女房); and other traditional ghosts and monsters. The book closes with the image of a large sun, signaling the end of the hyaku monogatari. 

Another major difference between Kyōsai’s book and others in the Hyakki yagyō zu tradition lies in the directionality of the monsters’ procession. In the Shinjuan images, the reader unrolls the scroll from right to left, following the same direction as the monsters. In this way the reader moves, almost sympathetically, with the parading monsters. On the final page, the monsters confronting the sun attempt a hasty retreat in the direction they came from, clashing with monsters from the right and resulting in pandemonium. In Kyōsai’s version, however, the monsters move from left to right, as if to confront the reader one by one. When the red sun appears at the end, the monsters flee, and it becomes apparent that they are headed for the dark netherworld on the right. [1] This reversal in direction evokes a sense of mystery and disquiet in the reader’s mind, with the final scene of the sun serving to solve the mystery and dispel any unease. [2] Kyōsai’s idiosyncratic spirit is manifest in the innovative representation of the monsters progressing in a direction opposite to that known in other night parade pictures.

The first edition of Kyōsai hyakki gadan was published in August 1889 by Buntokudō (Iwamoto Shun). The blocks were sold to the Kaishinrō (Inokuchi Matsunosuke), and a second edition appeared in August 1890. The Pulverer’s copy is this second edition. A further, widely distributed edition was issued in June 1895 with a different cover.

[1] According to one interpretation, this red circle represents the fireball that emerges from a Buddhist dharani (陀羅尼) spell. However, it is likely that the average reader since the Edo period, Kyōsai included, simply understood this as the rising sun. Indeed, most of the picture books on the night procession depict the sun. 

[2] In many of Kyōsai’s watercolors housed in the British Museum, Kyōsai adopts the same directionality as the Shinjuan text in the depiction of the monster parade from right to left. This indicates that the shift in direction in this particular work was deliberate.  

書名暁斎百鬼画談

執筆者　及川茂　

本書は没後出版であるが暁斎の代表作の一つである。「百鬼画談」とは沢山の妖怪、化け物を絵で描いた物語という意味である。百鬼夜行と言えば大徳寺真珠庵本Daitokuji Shinjuan が最も有名であり、後世の作品や鳥山石燕Toriyama Sekien の『百鬼夜行図』も基本的には真珠庵本を基礎としている。『暁斎百鬼画談』は、個々の化け物、妖怪などは真珠庵本の伝統を遵守しているが、本質的な相違を孕んでいる作品である。

真珠庵本系統との相違は、まず冒頭で日が落ちてから庶民が集まり百物語を行うという趣向で、百物語と百鬼夜行を組み合わせたのは暁斎の独自性である。集まった人々が部屋の灯を消して行くと化け物たちの行列が始まり、やがて暗闇の中を右から左に向かって骸骨たちの軍団が突進してくる。だが次のページではすぐに左の方から鬼や不動明王、象や蛙の化け物が出てくる。楽器の化け物、ぬらりひょん、青坊主、ぬっぺらぼう、青女房など伝統的な化け物の行列が続き、最後に大きな太陽が現れて、化け物たちの一夜の饗宴が終わる。

伝統的な百鬼夜行図とのもう一つの大きな相違は、化け物たちの進行の方向である。真珠庵本では化け物たちはすべて右から左へと向かっていき、読者は巻子本を右から左へと開きながら彼らと共に左方向へ進んで行くようになっているが、その行列は最後のページで太陽に出っくわして慌てて元来た方へ戻ろうとするので、右から突進してくる化け物たちと衝突して大混乱を引き起こす。しかし暁斎の場合は最初から化け物たちは左から右へとやって来るので、読者は次々と自分の方へ向かって来る化け物と遭遇するのである。最後の太陽の出現で、化け物たちが太陽から逃れて、右の方の闇の世界に向かっていることが分かる。[1] 化け物が向かって行く方向が他の夜行図と逆であるという発想は、暁斎独自の合理的な精神の現れである。真珠庵本のように化け物が左方向に向かうのは、読者が巻物を開きながら化け物と同じ方向に向かうことで、化け物たちと同じ意識を持つわけだが、暁斎は方向を逆転することで読者の心に謎を喚起し、最後の太陽の出現でその疑問を氷解させる効果を持つのである。[2]

初版は明治22年8月刊、文徳堂（岩本俊）であるが、翌年聚栄堂（大川錠吉）から再版され、28年6月にも再版が出た。

[1] この赤い玉は陀羅尼dharaniから出る火の玉であるという説があるが、江戸時代の庶民は単純に太陽と解釈していたであろう。多くの夜行図の写本でも、ほとんどが太陽を描いている。

[2] 暁斎は大英博物館蔵の多くの水彩画では、真珠庵本と同様に右から左へと進む化け物を描いている。つまり本書における方向の逆転は極めて意図的であることが分かる。

Selected readings

Jack Hillier, The Art of the Japanese Book, 2 vols. (London: Sotheby’s Publications by Philip Wilson Publishers, 1987), see esp. vol. 2, 938, 944.

Oikawa Shigeru 及川茂, ed., Comic Genius, Kawanabe Kyōsai/Kyōsai no giga kyōga  『暁斎の戯画・狂画』 (Tokyo: Tōkyō Shinbun, 1996), 192–97.

Oikawa Shigeru 及川茂, Les démons comiques dans l’oeuvre de Kyosai/Kyōsai no kokkei na bakemono tachi 『暁斎の滑稽な化け物たち』 (Tokyo: Ochanomizu University, 2006), 76, 234.

Yoshida Susugu 吉田漱, Isao Toshihiko 悳俊彦, and C. H. Mitchell チャールズー・H・ミッチエル, Kyōsai hyakki gadan  『暁斎百鬼画談』 (repr., Warabi City: Kyōsai Memorial Museum, 1985).

Copies in other collections

British Museum, London

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Ryerson Library, Art Institute of Chicago