Selected Insects - Tsukioka Yoshitoshi Art Print

Selected Insects by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi packs a whole summer garden onto one straw-yellow sheet. A mantis lifts jade green forelegs at the upper left. Below it a lizard stretches like a spilled brushstroke. A pewter gray bat hangs open-winged, its furred face turned toward a moth.

This Japanese woodblock print began life as omocha-e, a cheap toy print that Edo children snipped apart for guessing games. Tiny hiragana labels float beside every body. Say them aloud and the sheet turns into a spelling lesson. A warty toad squats near a plump caterpillar. The red dragonfly, tagged akatonbo in wobbly script, hovers above a spotted spider.

Later in life, Yoshitoshi would design ghosts and moonlit warriors that sealed his ukiyo-e fame. Here his line runs small and quick. Sumi ink keylines grip each wing vein of the cicadas. Green pigment pools unevenly, soft as pond scum on a July morning.

Hang this Japanese insect art where morning light lands first. Landing each day on the snake climbing in slow green loops as a snail glides across the page, shell coiled tight as a fingerprint.