Operating on Guan Yu's Arm

Katsushika Oi (c. 1800-1850s) was a Japanese painter known as the daughter and assistant of Katsushika Hokusai, whose few surviving works demonstrate a distinctive talent that is in some respects more bold and accomplished than her father's. Operating on Guan Yu's Arm from the 1840s depicts the famous episode from the Romance of the Three Kingdoms in which the physician Hua Tuo operates on the arm of the general Guan Yu, in the bold, dramatic manner that distinguishes Oi's best work. The 1840s date places this in Oi's most productive period, when she was producing the bold, dramatic paintings that demonstrate a distinctive talent that has been increasingly recognized in recent years.

Operating on Guan Yu's Arm is important in the history of Japanese painting because it demonstrates the bold, dramatic manner that makes Katsushika Oi one of the most distinctive female painters in Japanese art history. Oi's surviving works—few in number but bold in execution—have been increasingly recognized in recent years as demonstrating a distinctive talent that is in some respects more bold than her father Hokusai's, and the 1840s painting shows this distinctive talent in a dramatic subject from Chinese history.

Operating on Guan Yu's Arm is Oi's bold dramatic painting: the famous episode from the Romance of the Three Kingdoms rendered in the bold manner of the daughter of Hokusai, whose distinctive talent is increasingly recognized as surpassing her father's in boldness. The 1840s painting shows one of the most distinctive female painters in Japanese art history at her most dramatic.