Utagawa Kunisada I/Toyokuni III (1786–1864) Actor Nakamura Fukusuke I in the Dance Sequence Funa Torite Megumi no
Ôtsu-e, from the Play Kanadehon Chûshingura, 1857. Oban Triptych.
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An artist… (perhaps a rendering of Kunisada himself?) leans back in astonishment, one hand holding a Japanese brush and clutching his brow, the other gripping the table for support. Before him a parade of fantastical creatures, an apparition of mythologies seeming to leap as if in a dream from the blank sheet in front of their creator. Meanwhile, a similar cast of characters covers half a dozen completed, discarded sheets on the floor… what is going on?
This is a rare and complex print by Kunisada depicting a cast of Otsu figures come to life. Otsu-e are unsophisticated folk pictures painted on stiff paper in earth paints by villagers in the area of Otsu at the end of the Tokaido Road. As the movement of people became easier and more tolerated in eighteenth century Japan, a notion of tourism became established, such that Edo citizens might bring back souvenirs when they travelled and these portable pictures, with their exotic themes and crude execution, became very popular among townsfolk.
The paintings utilised traditional folk themes of demons, deities and heroes in a variety of often comical or satirical poses. By the nineteenth century, the troupe were reduced to nine or ten comical vignettes, many of which were made famous through kabuki dramas. In this print we see, reading from left to right: Yarimochi yakko, a samurai spear bearer who was a symbol of safety on a journey. The next group is the enigmatic image of an elaborately costumed monkey, carrying a gourd and riding an angry catfish. Popular mythology stated that the earthquakes which plagued Edo were caused by a gigantic and restless catfish - Namazu - who could only be quelled by an equally gigantic gourd. The meaning of the piled up figures of catfish, stone, gourd and monkey is complex; in part though, it is a simple illustration of a zen koan. Catching a slippery catfish with an unsuitable utensil such as a smooth and rounded gourd would be so difficult as to be almost impossible, thus illustrating the impossibility of using rational explanation to explain zen principles through logic.
The foreground scene features the god Fukurokuju, one of the seven lucky gods in Japanese mythology. Fukurokuju is usually portrayed, as here, with an exaggerated cranium, and to add to the humour of the scene, Kunisada has added a second of the lucky gods, Daikoku, who is sharpening a razor on a whetstone in preparation for shaving Fukurokuju’s head by use of the tall ladder behind him.
Looking on is the beautiful Wisteria Maiden (Fuji Musume) the star of a famous quick-change classical dance in the kabuki theatre. All of these characters appear as if from a mysterious cloud, generated from the artist’s brush. One further character outside both the dream-like apparition and the artist’s studio is the boatman Sendo, whose prow appears in front of a brightly painted kabuki stage curtain.
But what of the artist, and what has he done? He sits in the right-hand foreground, surrounded by the tools of his trade: the shelves of ground pigment, paper, weights, ink-stone, water dipper and so on. The artist is a depiction of the legendary painter Ukiyo Matabei, loosely based on Iwasa Matabei (1578-1650), who was supposed to be the founder of the ukiyo-e school and the inventor of otsu-e. Various legends tell of the characters in Matabei’s paintings coming alive, and these were sometimes depicted in paintings and prints, including a diptych by ukiyo-e artist Kuniyoshi, published in 1853 and prior to that, a triptych of 1848. Kuniyoshi’s print was momentarily banned because the artist used actors’ faces on all of the characters, breaking a prohibition on their depiction.
Kunisada mimics both the diptych and the triptych of 1848, but this print of 1857 commemorates a dance performance from that year, featuring the fantastical skills of the actor Nakamura Fukusuke, whose likeness the artist’s is. The dance sequence acted as an interval in the lengthy performance of the popular revenge drama, the Chushingura. The dance is based on a traditional play for the puppet theatre, in which Matabei is about to be arrested on false charges when suddenly his painted characters spring to life to defend him. In fact the actor Nakamura went on to play all the parts in the performance and the event was celebrated by Kunisada in not only this triptych but also a series of single sheet prints depicting the Wisteria Maiden and the Catfish in one, and the boatman Sendo and the standard bearer in another.
A tremendous and pleasingly complex print that ravels up traditional folklore, country crafts, puppet theatre, kabuki, dance and satire in one piece. The print is rare, and almost never comes up for sale. Three separate sheets, unbacked, in very good to excellent condition excepting a few repaired wormholes on two sheets.
Publisher: Hayashiya Shôgorô (Japanese).
76 x 36.5 cm.
