Shin-ban Kemono-zukushi (All Animals). Artist: Utagawa Kunitora. Period: Edo period, 19th century. Material: Multicolor woodblock print on paper. Collection: Tobacco and Salt Museum, Tokyo.
During Japan's Edo period, artists produced omocha-e, or toy pictures, for children. This work by Utagawa Kunitora, created using woodblock printing, is a colorful visual dictionary of the animal kingdom.
The artist doesn't use any perspective rules or ground lines on the paper. He scatters the figures freely across a light blue background. There's no natural zoological classification in this composition. Pets, wild predators, and supernatural creatures from Japanese folklore share the same surface.
Now, let's look at the figures in the upper left corner. A legendary nine-tailed fox with golden-yellow fur stands leaping over a black cloud. Immediately to its right--our left--we see a running gray wild boar, a striped tiger with its mouth wide open, and a green lion-dog with flaming red limbs. As we descend toward the middle, large mammals fill the space. There's a jet-black ox, a rearing brown horse, and a spotted leopard arching its back. Kunitora has added the name of each animal in Japanese characters for children to read.
Let's move to the bottom section. In the right corner, a huge, gray elephant stands holding a yellow bale of straw with its trunk. The elephant's human-like eyes, knee joints, and thick-nailed feet are far from anatomically realistic.
During the Edo period, Japan was tightly closed to the outside world, so people had almost no chance to see a live elephant. Illustrators often depicted these exotic creatures based on exaggerated drawings from ancient Chinese scrolls or hearsay from travelers. Immediately to the left of the elephant are creatures familiar from everyday life.
Look just below the spotted deer and the black ox in the center. The inscription next to this cross-legged creature--with its pure white face and disproportionately long black arms--reads *Enkou*. Kunitora has drawn him here as a cute monkey with his arms wrapped around his body.
However, in Japanese folklore, Enkou isn't an innocent creature at all. It's a local variety of the spooky water spirits known as Kappa that inhabit rivers. According to Shikoku folk legends, these creatures have an extremely flexible anatomy. When you pull one of their arms, the other arm instantly shortens. Enkou stealthily attacks horses and people who approach the water's edge at night. They drag their victims into the water and drown them. Their true goal is to rip the shirikodama--a legendary organ believed to house the human soul--from their victims' bodies.
In the midst of an educational picture, one of the most dangerous beings in Japanese mythology takes its place like just another ordinary animal.