A WOODBLOCK DIPTYCH BY TSUKIOKA YOSHITOSHI. (1839 - 1892) Dated 1886. Kakemono-e (vertical diptych) format, depicting a scene from ‘Tales of the Water Margin’, the hero, Lin Chong standing in the snow looking at a burning guardhouse at the foot of a mountain, he is holding a blood-covered sword in his hand, and his spear thrust into the body of Lu Qian lying beside him, signed Oju Yoshitoshi hitsu with a seal, the publisher’s name and date, Matsui Eikichi, April Meiji 19 (1886) in the left margin. (2) One of the masterpiece designs from the vertical diptych series by Yoshitoshi. Landscape prints by Yoshitoshi are rare, and often nature is depicted merely as a background to human figures. However, in this print, the artist demonstrates his talent for landscape design by using a dynamic composition of a towering mountain that occupied the entire top sheet, and a diagonal line of a snow-covered hill cutting though the mountain, taking the viewer towards the lower part where the dramatic action of a murder had taken place. The contrast of opposite elements of nature, such as fire and water, blood and snow, evokes an intense emotion, partnered with sophisticated printing techniques of using coloured lacquer and spattering white shell powder as snowflakes, to add a special visual effect. Yoshitoshi worked during a turbulent time at the end of the Edo and beginning of the Meiji period when the traditional printing techniques were replaced by Western innovations such as photography and lithography. Yoshitoshi fought against such a wave of modernisation and strived to keep the tradition. But his tragic death resulted in hastening the decline of woodblock print popularity. 錦絵２枚続　芳年　水滸伝図掛物絵