Aosaginohi
Encyclopedia
Toriyama Sekien
thumb|200px| was an 18th century scholar and ukiyo-e artist of Japanese folklore. He was the teacher of Utamaro and, before taking up printmaking, a painter of the Kanō school. Toriyama is most famous for his attempt to catalogue all species of yōkai in the Hyakki Yakō series.-References:...
in his Konjaku Gazu Zoku Hyakki
Konjaku Gazu Zoku Hyakki
is the second book of Japanese artist Toriyama Sekien's famous Gazu Hyakki Yakō series, published ca. 1779. These books are supernatural bestiaries, collections of ghosts, spirits, spooks and monsters, many of which Toriyama based on literature, folklore, other artwork...
. It depicts a night heron
Night heron
The night herons are medium-sized herons in the genera Nycticorax, Nyctanassa and Gorsachius. The genus name Nycticorax derives from the Greek for “night raven” and refers to the largely nocturnal feeding habits of this group of birds, and the croaking crow-like call of the best known species, the...
with a mysteriously illuminated body.