46.   Bon Festival moon
        Bon no tsuki

Bon is the most important summertime festival in Japan, still celebrated today; it is held in the middle of the seventh lunar month when the moon is full. During the festival, the spirits of the dead are believed to visit their descendants in the world of the living. The Japanese apply the practice of different religions (Buddhist, Shinto, and now Christian) to different stages of human life. Death is the province of Buddhism, and Bon is a Buddhist festival.

Though devoted to the dead, the Bon festival is a happy one, celebrated with much feasting and dancing. Ancestors return to the world of the living drawn by the strength of familial ties and their family’s offerings; there is also a sense that this world is the finest world possible, which is why the dead always wish to come back. Food is placed on the family altar for the spirits who return to the netherworld entertained and well-fed. The festival is also known as the Lantern Festival, since lanterns are lit under the moonlight to guide the spirits on their way to and from the underworld.

In rural areas a dance called bon odori is performed. People of both sexes from a line or large circle and there is a great deal of handclapping and singing of songs. Young people are performing the dance in this design, rhythmically swaying from side to side. They wear light cotton summer yukata and dance with fans. The boys are the ones with their hair gathered into tight vertical queues and wearing robes with a simple geometric pattern. The composition of the design flows in a spiral up towards the moon. Yoshitoshi loved the vitality of traditional Japanese culture and fills this print with movement – the dancers are obviously having a good time.

The design is drawn in the Shijō manner, a simplified style of painting developed by the eighteenth-century artist, Matsumura Goshun, from the detailed naturalism of his teacher, Maruyama Ōkyo. It was named after Goshun’s studio, located on Kyoto’s Shijō, Fourth Avenue (though the studio was eight or nine blocks away from the Shijō river area illustrated earlier.) Many of the backgrounds of the Moon Series are drawn in the loose Shijō style. This contrasts with the more careful strokes which delineate the human figures in many of the designs (see, for example, the contrasting brushwork in the design of the Filial Son). Shijō brushwork emphasized fluency of line and was often almost impressionistic; it is appropriate for the informal subject here.