The Tale of Hiki Hangan Yoshikazu

A title not yet certain

A warrior picture charged with the dense narrative feeling of yomihon illustration. Why the mounted figure should be identified with Hiki Yoshikazu, known as foster-father to Minamoto no Yoriie, the second shogun of the Kamakura shogunate, has never been fully explained. If the figure is Yoshikazu, the infant carried off in his arm would be Yoriie; yet no surviving war tale or record is known to relate such a scene. What is certain is the force of the horseman set boldly across the whole sheet, and the fluent, unhesitating brush that draws the horse's haunch and tail.