Fighting Tattooed Men: Kunichika and the Tattoo Culture of Old Edo | 豊原国周 刺青

Toyohara Kunichika (豊原国周) is best known for his kabuki actor portraits, but his designs also captured the rougher corners of Edo life. This striking print from the Greater Victoria Art Museum, known as Fighting Tattooed Men, is a vivid example of his power with the Meiji-era actor print and the world of the irezumi, the full-body tattoo.

The scene is a violent one: an enraged, heavily tattooed man raises a knife in his right hand while grappling with the man beneath him, and the face of a woman is visible at the lower right. The upper part of the sheet is filled with dense Japanese text against a deep red background, a dramatic design element typical of the period that gives the fight its narrative frame.

The tattoo culture of the Edo period flourished among firemen, laborers, and gamblers, and by the Meiji era it had become one of the most recognizable symbols of the old city. Kunichika draws the sweeping blue-black patterns across the fighters' bodies with the same confidence he gave to his actors' costumes, turning the tattoos themselves into costume and character.

For the viewer today, the print is a rare window onto both the ukiyo-e workshop and the culture of the tattoo, caught in the thick, energetic linework that made Kunichika one of the last great masters of the woodblock print.