Konjaku Gazu Zoku Hyakki

What it is

Konjaku Gazu Zoku Hyakki is a Japanese picture book of yōkai, the ghosts, spirits and monsters of that country's lore. The artist Toriyama Sekien issued it around 1779 as the second of four volumes in his Gazu Hyakki Yagyō set. Inside, uncanny beings are drawn one after another, and each picture carries a written caption; Sekien began adding these notes with this very book. The subjects come from many wells: written literature, folk tales and the work of earlier artists, so the volume acts as a bestiary, a collected pageant of the strange. Its three parts are titled Rain, Dark and Dawn. The set is credited with shaping how yōkai have been pictured in Japan ever since, and an English edition with notes reached print in 2016.

Where it comes from

The book was published in Japan around 1779. It stands second in a run of four picture collections by Toriyama Sekien that opened with Gazu Hyakki Yagyō; Konjaku Hyakki Shūi and Gazu Hyakki Tsurezure Bukuro came after it. Sekien drew many of his subjects from written stories, folk tradition and the work of other artists, so the series gathers beings that were already familiar rather than inventing them all from nothing. With this second volume he took a new step: captions naming each creature appear from here on. The set kept its hold on later artists, and in 2016 an English edition with annotations carried it to readers outside Japan.

How it is done

The book is organised into three volumes, each carrying a single character as its title: 雨, read as Rain, 晦, read as Dark, and 明, read as Dawn. Within them the creatures appear as pictures, and from this volume onward every picture carries a written caption naming its subject. Sekien worked as a compiler as much as an inventor: many figures come from literature, from folk tales handed down locally, and from pictures by earlier hands, reworked into designs of his own. The result reads less like a story than a catalogue, being after being, each fixed in ink.

Tools and materials

The raw material was largely borrowed: tales in print, folk traditions and pictures by earlier artists, which Sekien turned into designs of his own. Onto each image he set a caption in Japanese script giving the creature its name, a practice that started with the present book. The three volume titles, 雨, 晦 and 明, read as Rain, Dark and Dawn, give the collection its frame.

What it is for

This is a book of showing and naming. Its pages bring together ghosts, spirits and monsters of many kinds, drawn one by one so that each has a visible form. Within the four-book set it marks a shift: here the creatures first receive captions, so pictures become an indexed company of named beings. Its wider work has been lasting and artistic. Later yōkai pictures in Japan took their cues from these designs, making the book a storehouse for much of the supernatural imagery that followed.

Who does it

Toriyama Sekien, a Japanese artist, created the book and its three companions. He worked as much as a collector as a draughtsman: many of the beings he drew were taken from written literature, from folklore and from pictures by earlier hands, then given his own design. With this second volume he changed his habit and began adding captions, so each creature carries its name in writing. The four books together form the set he is chiefly remembered by.

Peoples and places

The book is Japanese through and through: it was made in Japan, by a Japanese artist, about beings from Japanese story. Its effect has also been chiefly at home. Later yōkai pictures in Japan took their cue from Sekien's designs, so the creatures of this book became the creatures of Japanese art more widely. The set crossed a language border only in 2016, when a translated, annotated English edition let readers outside Japan meet the same cast of beings.

What people believe

The beings gathered here are the yōkai of Japanese story: ghosts, spirits and monsters, each with its own look and habits. Sekien's pages treat this crowd as material to be catalogued rather than debated; creatures already known from folk tales and written literature are given a fixed, printed shape. The naming matters too. By adding captions from this volume on, the artist pairs each drawn figure with a name, so a being that lived in spoken tales becomes something readers can point to. It is a record, not a manual: names and pictures, not rites.

Compare and confuse

The book sits inside a set whose members share near-identical names, so it is often confused with them. The tetralogy as a whole goes by Gazu Hyakki Yagyō, the title of the first volume. Konjaku Gazu Zoku Hyakki is the second; Konjaku Hyakki Shūi is the third and Gazu Hyakki Tsurezure Bukuro the fourth. What marks this one out within the set is the arrival of captions under each picture.

Today

The designs Sekien printed in the 1770s still circulate. The way yōkai are pictured in Japan owes a great deal to his pages, so creatures first fixed in ink then keep turning up in later work. In 2016, more than two centuries on, the whole tetralogy appeared in an English edition with notes, opening the set to readers far beyond Japan.

Questions people ask about Konjaku Gazu Zoku Hyakki

Good reading and sources

• Konjaku Gazu Zoku Hyakki on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• More photos on Wikimedia CommonsPhotos and video
• Wikidata recordOpen data