In the minds of casual observers, Japan is simple. Between lovers of tradition and those enraptured by Japan's quirky window into an urban future, it's either the former land of austere, honorable warriors or the current one of air-headed, emotionally overwrought manga characters.
But there must be something missing in these easy extremes.
What about a darkness that lies deep in the art of nihonga, the Japanese form of painting? Behind the beautiful presentations of the four seasons done in gold, pigment and sumi ink on paper, of the birds and flowers of the kachofugetsu genre of paintings, behind even the joyful eroticism of shunga prints, there is another world. It is spread broadly throughout the nihonga genre, and more specifically in yurei-ga, the genre of ghost paintings, representing a common darkness that points to a more mysterious side of Japanese culture.