A Life of Ink and Rebellion Kawanabe Kyōsai entered the world in 1831 in Koga, born into a samurai family. His early years were marked by a sudden, visceral encounter with mortality when, at age nine, he discovered a human head separated from a corpse in the Kanda river. This early shock preceded a formal education under the masters of the Kanō school and Utagawa Kuniyoshi. While he mastered the precise brushwork required by tradition…