[inspic=58,leftclear,fullscreen,thumb]
Image gallery of photos from the Yurei-ga gallery at Zenshoan temple in Tokyo.
“Yurei” is Japanese for “ghost”, “apparition” or “spirit”.
The Yurei-ga Gallery is a private collection of Edo-period (1603 to 1867) scrolls with images of a variety of Japanese ghosts which range from sad, haunted spirits, to ghastly, monstrous demons.
Seemed appropriate for the Japanese Obon festival, a festival to honor dead ancestors which is sort of a mish-mash of Halloween (more like Samhain), Christmas and Easter. Essentially the spirits of dead ancestors return but instead of trying to scare them off like halloween, Japanese families gather together to welcome their ancestors back for a visit before seeing them off again at the end of the festival.
UPDATE
The URL has changed since I posted this ages ago. The Gallery is now a flash SWF accessible via this page:
http://www.theway.jp/zen/yuureiga_goaisatsu.html
There are 4 links in the red bar under the banned at the top of the page, the 2nd of the links goes to the gallery.
Direct link is:
http://www.theway.jp/zen/flash/yuureiga.swf
2 Comments
I can’t seem to get to the yūrei-ga gallery, I only get the first image. I have ‘marked the page as it looks really interesting but I am researching images right now so I can’t drop down your rabbit hole right now.
Yeah, seems they updated the site at some point and made a flash gallery. I’ve updated the links in the post, but the direct link to the gallery is http://www.theway.jp/zen/flash/yuureiga.swf