Lighting a Hanging Lantern for the Obon Festival

Obon, the Festival of Souls, is a Buddhist celebration held over the course of three days during late summer throughout Japan, often accompanied by festive public dances called Bon odori. It is believed that souls of ancestors return during this time, and small Obon lanterns on stands (obon chōchin 盆提灯) are lit to temporarily welcome back the spirits of deceased ancestors, while offerings are made at household altars. Family members also hang lanterns in front of their homes in order to help guide the spirits of the ancestors back to where they dwell in the afterlife. At the end of the Obon festival, the lanterns are released into the nearest body of water so that the spirits can return to the other world. In this print, the woman’s summer yukata (light cotton kimono) with blue floral patterns flutters in the breeze as she lights an Obon lantern (obon-doro お盆燈籠); a small dog stands beside her. Sometimes obon lanterns, often decorated with colorful papers, as here, were hung at graves of ancestors, usually in the precincts of Buddhist temples. While the area around the lantern and the face of the women are illuminated, her body and the dog are rendered almost entirely in shades of gray, without outlines, creating the effect of shadows at dusk.

Shibata Zeshin was primarily known as a master lacquer artist, yet was also a highly skilled painter and print designer on traditional Japanese pictorial and genre themes during a time Japan was opening to the West.