The Ghost of Oyuki

In this portrait, Maruyama Ōkyo depicts a female yūrei, the traditional Japanese ghost. According to an inscription on the painting itself, the artist had a relationship with a young woman connected to the Tominaga geisha house, who died while still very young. After her death, her memory stayed with him so strongly that one night her spirit appeared to him in a dream. Unable to drive the image from his mind, Ōkyo painted it. What makes the work striking is that it anticipates features that would become common in ghosts of the late Edo period: disheveled hair, a pale white or light blue garment, lifeless hanging hands, and a nearly transparent body that fades away below the waist. For this reason it is regarded as one of the earliest works to establish this iconography, and it shows how painting of the time began to give visual form to the supernatural.

Painter

Maruyama Ōkyo

Date

1750

Genre

yūrei-zu

Depicts

yūrei

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