Utagawa Kunisada/Toyokuni III (1786-1865) Actors at the Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido Road # 21: Mariko - Kataoka Ichizo I as Tagohei, 1852. Oban.
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One of the outstanding prints from a groundbreaking and hugely successful series pairing actor roles with the stations of the Tokaido Road. Print artists during the mid-century were plagued by legislation forbidding the naming and depiction of actors. Artists such as Kunisada who made their living from the theatre looked for increasingly complicated work-arounds… producing a landscape series with unnamed figures was one such strategy. Kunisada was apparently inspired by the actor Onoe Kikugoro III who walked the route, performing ad hoc dramas at different stations along the way. Kunisada used landscape prints from Hiroshige’s Hoeido edition of 1831 as the backdrops, a practice quite common at the time. In front of these borrowed scenes he depicted living and dead actors in scenes from plays that sometimes relate to the landscape or station depicted in the background. The series was an instant success: songs comparing Kunisada to great culinary delicacies and calling him the "Flower of Edo" were composed in his honour. Other series followed, notably one on the same theme set against Kisokaido Road backgrounds.
The proliferation of these images has meant that the genius of the designs, the conception and indeed the tremendous vitality of the execution is sometimes overlooked. This is a great woodblock print, over 150 years old and in very good condition. It shows the character Tagohei played by Kataoka Ichizô I from the kabuki drama, Ichi-no-Tani Futaba Gunki. The play is very complicated and there is insufficient space here to summarise the events. A full synopsis is available at the excellent kabuki21 site.
The action takes place in the warring clans period of the twelfth century. The Taira clan and the Minamoto clans are permanently at war: the events are part of the history and mythology of Japan and are recorded in such epics as the Heiki Monogatari. Kabuki and puppet playwrights found a trove of subjects in these stories and wrote long and complex narratives around heroes and warriors. Like a previous print in this selection, the play here deals with the execution of an adolescent by his own father, bound by duty and loyalty; and the confounding presentation of that head in a basket. The character Tagohei is in fact disguised and is the retainer, Samegai. It is he that caries the washing basket on stage with its grim contents. The basket and the armour of the youth are visible in the cartouche on the right of the print. Tagohei/Samegai is painted in thunderous red make up, his clothes richly patterned with fearsome dragons and thunder clouds… all giving the impression of barely suppressed rage and action.
The print is trimmed to the image, lightly backed by Japanese album paper and is in excellent condition. Impression and colour are both fine. This print is also in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.
Publisher: Izutsuya Shôkichi.
34.5 x 24.5 cm.
