The Meiji Era artist Kawanabe Kyosai (1831-89) is said to have had his first memorable encounter with an animal as a little boy. One day, walking along the road, he came upon a frog, which a servant picked up and gave to him.
Once home, as the legend has it, he was so entranced with the frog that he began to draw it. Thus an artist was born.
Spending almost his whole life in Tokyo (as Edo was renamed in 1868), the painter Kyosai was well placed to observe the dramatic changes going on around him, including the Westernization of art. Having been attracted early to the kyoga ("crazy picture") genre of painting, he became a notably lighthearted artist.