The Ghost of Oyuki

The Ghost of Oyuki (お雪の幻, Oyuki no maboroshi^?) is a painting of a female yūrei, (a traditional Japanese ghost), by Maruyama Okyo (1733-1795), founder of the Maruyama-Shijô school of painting.

According to an inscription on the painting, Okyo had a mistress in the Tominaga Geisha house. She died young and Okyo mourned her passing. One night her spirit came to him in a dream, and unable to get her image out of his head he painted this portrait. This is one of the earliest paintings of a yūrei (ghost) with the basic late-Edo period ghost characteristics: disheveled hair, white or pale blue robe, limp hands, nearly transparent, lack of lower body.

References

• Iwasaka, Michiko and Toelken, Barre. Ghosts and the Japanese: Cultural Experiences in Japanese Death Legends, Utah State University Press, 1994. ISBN 0-87421-179-4