Fighting Festival

Inui Tai, artist

born 1929

Fighting Festival, 1980s, Showa period (1926–1989)

Portfolio/Series title: #1447

Where object was made: Japan

Material/technique: woodcut

Dimensions:
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 857 x 904 mm
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 33 3/4 x 35 9/16 in
Sheet/Paper Dimensions (Height x Width): 963 x 968 mm
Sheet/Paper Dimensions (Height x Width): 963 x 968 mm
Frame Dimensions (Height x Width x Depth): 42 3/4 x 44 1/2 x 1 1/4 in
Weight (Weight): 18 lbs

Credit line: Museum purchase: Lucy Shaw Schultz Fund

Accession number: 2006.0098

Not on display

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Images

Label texts

Sacred Space and Japanese Art at the Spencer Museum of Art

This work by Inui Tai is one of several that focuses on festivals. It shows a type of Shinto festival called the fighting festival, the largest of which takes place every October in Himeji. The distinctive aspects of the festival revolve around men carrying mikoshi (portable structures holding kami, Shinto deities) and yatai (extremely heavy floats). The energetic festival gets its name from the ritual action of the participants forcing the mikoshi near, and sometimes into, each other. Inui’s print depicts the essence of the festival: the bearers, denoted by their headbands, carry the three mikoshi near each other as a crowd watches.
The energy found in the festival serves as an important basis of sacred space. The festival is held to celebrate the return of the kami to Earth from the spiritual realm, and the characteristic fighting and revelry are intended to please and entertain them on the shrine grounds. The stark contrasts found in the print highlight the lines of the people carrying the mikoshi and express a vibrant energy. This energy and ritual “fighting” form a connection between the people and the kami. In the print, the spiritual space of the festival encompasses all, as those who carry the mikoshi blend in with everyone else.
Text by Matt Hobart

Exhibition Label:
"Japan Re-imagined/Post-war Art," Mar-2008, Kris Ercums
Throughout his career, Inui Tai has valorized a
traditional lifestyle, choosing to create work dealing with pre-industrialized Japan. In this large-scale print he captures the frenzied Nada Fighting Festival (灘の喧嘩祭り)held every October at the Matsubara Shrine located outside of Kobe in Hyōgo Prefecture.
Divided into groups according to age, teams engage in a fierce contest, attempting to topple the shrines of rival teams. The result of the contest—when one shrine emerges victorious—is used to predict the harvest and
fortune for the coming year.