Arashi Rikan II as the Shogun Taro, Nakamura Karoku I as Takiyosa, and Ichikawa Sukejiro in an unidentified role in a scene from the Play Soma Tarō Hyōbundan performed at the Naka Theater in 11/1832

Arashi Rikan II as the Shogun Taro, Nakamura Karoku I as Takiyosa, and Ichikawa Sukejiro in an unidentified role in a scene from the Play Soma Tarō Hyōbundan performed at the Naka Theater in 11/1832

Ryūsai Shigeharu 柳窗重春

Woodblock print (ōban tate-e diptych); ink and color on paper

each sheet trimmed to block: 37.8 x 26 cm. (14 7/8 x 10 1/4 in.) overall sheet (a-b, joined): 37.8 x 52 cm

Museum purchase, Laura P. Hall Memorial Fund, selected for acquisition by students in ART 425: The Japanese Print

2011-59 a-b

Asia, Japan

This diptych depicts a performance of the Kabuki play Soma Tarō Hyōbundan. While Kabuki was a typical subject in Edo-period prints, this print is unusual in that it places the scene in a landscape setting; the style of the landscape employs a painting mode invented by the Maruyama-Shijō workshop, one of the most important Kyoto-based painting studios of the Edo period. This appropriation of a painting style for a theater print background was unusual and demonstrates the innovation of print artists working in Osaka. In the most interesting cases – as here – Osaka prints transformed the typical formulae of contemporary mainstream productions from the city of Edo. This print also experiments with dramatic perspective. Like many Osaka prints, it is technically accomplished – some of the best block carvers and printers worked in Osaka – and the condition is excellent.

Japanese

Edo (Japanese period)

oban, woodblock prints, prints, diptychs, japanese printmaking styles

oban, color, ink, paper

woodcut (process)

mountains, women, spider web, plays, princesses, actors, spiders, figures (representations)