Page 454 - Edo: Art in Japan, 1615–1868

2 58 259 classic vendetta plays on the theme
Kitagawa Utamaro (c. 1754-1806) Tóshüsai Sharaku (active 1794-1795) of the Soga brothers and forty-seven
Yamauba and Kintarô The Actor Segawa Tomisaburó II as masterless samurai (rônin). The (once
Yadorigi, Wife of Ôgishi Kurando purple) kerchief over the actor's fore-
c. 1804-1805 head is a remnant fashion harking
Color woodblock print 1794
38.3 x 25.5 (15 Vs x 10) Color woodblock print with mica back to the seventeenth century,
7
3
Tokyo National Museum 37.5x25 (i4 / 4 x9 /8) when young men playing female
roles, or onnagata, wore kerchiefs to
Important Art Object Tokyo National Museum cover their shaven forelocks. The
Important Cultural Property
• Many of Utamaro's images treat carefully coiffed hairstyle with its
array of wooden hairpins and
barrette
the subject of mother-child relation- • Following on the success of Kitagawa
ships. His depictions range from the Utamaro in capturing various aspects accurately reflects the elaborate wigs
the onnagata wore on stage. The
most tender and innocent to playful of the female persona in bust portraits, sharply articulated nose, the squarish 453
and rambunctious. The artist created Tóshüsai Sharaku burst on the Edo
outline of the jowls, and the jutting
some fifty designs of Yamauba, a art scene in the spring of 1794 with jaw reflect the actor's actual appear-
mountain woman, and Kintaro, her his series of distinctive bust portraits ance and run counter to a long tradi-
son, who grew up to be one of Japan's of actors. A prolific artist, Sharaku tion of depicting female impersonators
legendary heroes, renowned for his created some 145 print designs; most
feats of great strength and derring-do. are of kabuki actors, but some depict as beautiful women with graceful fea-
tures. Rather than the usually
passive
In his late nineteenth-century biog- sumo scenes, and a smattering of gaze of paintings of women, here the
raphy of Utamaro the French writer images show historical personages.
Edmond de Concourt went so far as to He then abruptly disappeared soon renowned recalcitrant personality
actor is evoked by the
tiny but
of the
elevate images of Yamauba's maternal after the New Year's kabuki perfor-
highly pronounced eyes and arched
devotion to the spiritual plane of the mances of 1795. Before making his eyebrows that connote an inner hard-
Virgin Mary. Yet many of the prints appearance as a print designer, he ness. The tightly closed lips add a
take on a distinctly erotic tone. Other seems to have worked as a no per- suggestion of superciliousness. JTC
prints in the series play on Kintaro's former under the sponsorship of a
Oedipus complex — they kiss not ten- daimyo family from the province of
derly but passionately. Awa (on the far side of Edo Bay).
Knowing of the other prints precludes All of the examples reproduced here
the possibility of an innocent reading are from Sharaku's earliest work,
of this one. Here Kintaro is depicted inspired by plays performed in the
typically with a round face of ruddy fifth month of 1794. Nearly every print
complexion crowned by a thatch of from his first two or three months is
thick hair surrounding a small circle outstanding both in technical finesse
of his shaven pate. He sips milk from and artistic expression. Examples
a shallow bowl as he glances lovingly from the end of his output give the
up at his mother while pushing a impression of an artist suffering from
leg into her breast. In a related image overwork, though there are some
the artist shows a nearly identical strong compositions from late 1794.
scene of Kintaro suckling his mother's Sharaku created a sensation by his
breast; here the child sucks up the naturalistic suggestion or slight ex-
milk as though it were from a breast.
aggeration of an actor's actual features,
As in other prints in this series, especially in the shape of the nose, jaw,
Yamauba has a very long face with and jowls. Since not all actors were
almond-shaped eyes; her long scrag- handsome, some unflattering portraits
gly hair cascades down her shoulders. with the strong flavor of caricature
Her eyebrows are bushy, and her teeth resulted. This print shows the male
are blackened. The innumerable loose kabuki actor Segawa Tomisaburó II as
strands of hair on both Yamauba Yadorigi, the wife of townsman Ôgishi
and Kintaro provided the block carver Kurando. The kabuki play from which
with daunting technical challenges: it derives, A Flowery Soga-Style Vendetta
only infinite patience and a sure hand Tale of the Bunroku Period (Rana ayame
could get each strand just right. JTC Bunroku Soga), is a pastiche of the