Japan: A young woman caught in a storm; the thunder god Raijin appears in the clouds above, beating his drums to create thunder. Torii Kiyomitsu (1735-1785), c. 1770

Torii Kiyomitsu (1735 – May 11, 1785) was a painter and printmaker of the Torii school of Japanese ukiyo-e art; the son of Torii Kiyonobu II or Torii Kiyomasu II, he was the third head of the school, and was originally called Kamejirō before taking the gō Kiyomitsu.

Dividing his work between actor prints and bijinga (pictures of beautiful women), he primarily used the benizuri-e technique prolific at the time, which involved using one or two colors of ink on the woodblocks rather than hand-coloring; full-color prints would be introduced later in Kiyomitsu's career, in 1765.

Raijin is a god of lightning, thunder and storms in the Shinto religion and in Japanese mythology. He is typically depicted as a demonic spirit beating drums to create thunder, usually with a tomoe symbol drawn on the drums.

Copyright:

Supplier: CPA Media Co. Ltd.

Credit:

Pictures From History