Kunisada: Minister Kibi’s Adventure in China with Go Board and Ghost

Artist: Utagawa Kunisada (1786-1864) Title: Minister Kibi’s Adventure in China with Go Board and Ghost Date: 1852 We see the Japanese minister Kibi seated far right, wearing Japanese robes and looking confident as he plays a go game with the Chinese go master Gento, who wears Chinese-ish garments and looks quite concerned at how the game is going. The setting of this story is Tang Dynasty China (618-907), when Japan dispatched Minister Kibi (693-775) 吉備大臣 (the rightmost figure in the print) to China. When he arrived, the Chinese nobles and intellectuals wanted to test his intelligence and wisdom. Minister Kibi had to accomplish three tasks: write an exegesis of voluminous Chinese anthology; win a Go-game;  and comment on a sophisticated and difficult poem. He managed to pass all with the help of Japanese deities and apparitions. The triptych depicts the scene of the Go-game of his second task, which took place in a tower of the imperial palace. Minister Kibi is facing master of Go, Gen