Taira no Kiyomori Sees Skulls in the Snowy Garden

The tyrant Taira no Kiyomori, old and fevered, looks out from his veranda at a garden under snow — and the snow looks back, every drift and stone resolving into the skulls of the men he destroyed. From The Tale of the Heike: the great warlord at the height of his power, haunted not by a ghost but by a landscape. Yoshitoshi makes the viewer repeat Kiyomori’s experience — you see a garden first, and then you cannot unsee the dead. No skull is drawn outright; each is a snow-form a few tones off. Kiyomori’s posture is the picture’s verdict — a man bracing against his own garden. "Power ends where the snow starts remembering."

Maker

Tsukioka Yoshitoshi

Date

c. 1890

Medium of the original

Woodblock print; ink and color on paper

Rights

Cleared for print

Catalogue number

PA-00416