"In this painting, Kawanabe Kyosai [(1831-1889)] has conjured up a vision of the dreaded powers of woman, as seen in a female ghost or yurei. Kyosai has portrayed the yurei as she was often imagined, with both of her hands fluttering in front of her chest, hair loose and unkempt. She creeps through a gray mist, wearing a transparent, gauzy gown. Below her flows a stream, at her side is a willow tree and above a full moon.

"Ghost stories had been common for centuries in Japan, but the term yurei made its first appearance in literature and drama of the Edo period, presumably due to the unjust treatment that many women endured. It was believed that after death, the spirits of such unfortunate women could return as avenging ghosts. Tales abound of female ghosts who were abused during their lives, abandoned by their lovers or tormented by their employers. In some cases, these spirits are said to be violently angry; in other cases, they are simply sad and lamenting. Yet the emotional bond that ties them to this world remains, and so they must roam the world of the living. The chanting and praying of Buddhist priests were said to ward off such spectres.

"Yurei were frequently treated as subjects in paintings, popular stories and kabuki drama, the most popular theatrical form of the Edo period (1600-1867). In nineteenth-century Japan, when kabuki performances were becoming more dramatic and violent, theater audiences enjoyed stories of avenging spirits. This interest in the bloody and the macabre may reflect the social unrest that was becoming more apparent at the end of the Edo period, especially during the decades of the 1820s and 1830s. With the Tempo Reform (1841-43), government censors tried to address the decadence of such violent portrayals - but later in the nineteenth century, such themes attracted audiences once again with violence that was visited upon women. In a number of kabuki plays, young women are tortured or murdered, and attractive women are transformed into appallingly disfigured ghosts.

"Kawanabe Kyosai depicted this yurei with amazing attention to accurate anatomical detail. Her eerie form is skeletal, rendered in subtle washes of gray, blue and light brown ink. A number of similar ghost portrayals are known, including the images in woodblock prints of a Ghost Skeleton and A Cat Demon by the teacher of Kyosai, Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1797-1861).

"Kyosai, originally named Shusaburo, was the second son of a low-ranking samurai. Kyosai was gifted at art even as a child, and he was sent by his father to train under Kuniyoshi when he was six years old. Kyosai soon became acclaimed for his talent in naturalistic rendering, as well as for his capacity for creating fantastic, bizarre images. His output was prodigious, including hundreds of paintings, woodblock prints and illustrated books. In addition to his training under Kuniyoshi, Kyosai studied the orthodox painting style of the Kano school under Kano Towa (?-1841). At the young age of twenty-seven, Kyosai established his own studio and soon achieved renown, both for his dynamic imagination and for the technical refinement of his art. Kyosai is remembered as one of the geniuses of late nineteenth-century Japanese art.

"The artist signed his name, 'Kyosai,' at the right side of his hanging scroll, using the character for 'kyo' that means 'dawn.' Kyosai is thought to have written his name with this character from about 1874 on, giving us some idea of when he painted this hanging scroll. He adopted the name Kyosai after being released from prison, having served a four-month sentence for drawing a comic sketch of an inebriated foreigner. Kyosai had himself loved to drink, but he seems to have stopped, at least for a short period, after this incident."

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