HOKUSAI - TAMENAGA, Shunsui.

£6,000 · Offered by Peter Harrington · No longer available

Teisei hokoku: Ehon kanso gundan ("An Illustrated Tale of the Chu-Han War"). First complete edition. This historical novel is a semi-fictional retelling of the Chu-Han Contention, with depictions of peasant massacres put alongside fantastical scenarios of heroes fighting giant snakes and dragons. Hokusai illustrated this work in the final years of his life, displaying the full range of the expressive skills he had honed for decades.After the fall of the Qin dynasty in 206 BC the empire split into 18 kingdoms, the most powerful of which were the Western Chu, led by Xiang Yu, and the Han, led by Liu Bang. The two rivals fought over four years, culminating in a last stand at the Battle of Gaixia, where the Chu leader committed suicide after a total Han victory.These legendary warriors and their battles were immortalized through literature, including the Chinese work Xihan tongsu yanyi. This present work is Tamenaga Shunsui's (1790-1844) translation of that novel for the Japanese market, with Hokusai's illustrations "providing an appealing vision of a foreign country unknown to readers" (Marks, p. 195). It is a blend of history and fiction, where the real figures of Xiang Yu and Liu Bang perform semi-mythical acts of bravery and strength. One notably gory scene shows Xiang Yu's men killing 5,000 peasants loyal to the Qin dynasty. The soldiers on the left behead two captives while their fellow soldiers shovel an overwhelming number of heads into baskets to be carried away.Part 1,

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