ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on ‘ghosts’ narrowly defined as apparitions in human form, leaving aside the rich panoply of demons and other supernatural beings, usually termed yokai. The foremost example of pictorial representation is the ‘Scroll of Hungry Ghosts’ painted in the twelfth century. Japanese culture possesses a rich repertoire of ghosts and demons, dating back at least a thousand years, and emerging from both formalized religion and popular lore. There was growing demand for new and stimulating subject matter and this was the point at which ghosts and apparitions began to make an appearance in visual culture, shifting from something truly fearful to a source of entertainment and thrilling frisson. The ghosts of early modern Japanese visual culture originated in religious beliefs, but in a rapidly expanding urban environment they were eagerly taken up by consumer culture as a form of entertainment.
