DREAM SPECTRES

UKIYO-E images from the floating world were the most popular art-form of 19th century Japan. Like modern-day manga, these prints could be mass-produced and were admired by people from all sectors of society; and as in manga, the art of ukiyo-e included significant sub-genres dealing in violence. erotica and horror. With unflinching images of weird sex, bloody carnage and grotesque, demonic ghosts, DREAM SPECTRES is a powerful collection of the extremes of ukiyo-e, featuring the work of such artists as Yoshitoshi, Ekin, Kunichika, Yoshiiku, Kunisada, Hokusai, Kuniyoshi, Yoshitsuya, Hiroshige, and Chikanobu. DREAM SPECTRES features over 250 amazing full-colour images, including the complete Eimei Nijuhasshuku ( 28 Blood Atrocities ) of Yoshitoshi and Yoshiiku, and ranging in content from bondage and bestiality to decapitations, demons, dragons and designs for classic irezumi (body tattoos). This is Japanese art not only at its extremes of imagination, but often at its most highly accomplished and innovative. No comparable collection has previously been published in the English language. With text by Jack Hunter, author of the acclaimed and influential Eros In Hell. Here are the original images of female ghosts which inspired huge movie hits like The Ring and The Grudge; here are the gruesome samurai pictures, the demons, the panoramas of Hell, the mythical beasts and dragons, the blood-soaked scenes from kabuki theatre; here are the most explicit and exaggerated pornographic images of shunga; here are the legendary atrocity prints of Yoshitoshi; here are the amazing tattoo designs which were taken up by Japan's yakuza and now serve as inspiration for tattoo designers worldwide. And here is a compendium of some of the most innovative and dazzling works in the history of art.