Utagawa Kunisada/Toyokuni III (1786-1865) The Sixty-nine Stations of the Kisokaido Road: Station 30 - Shimo-Suwa, 1852. Oban.
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Another tremendously successful print series - Sixty-nine Stations of the Kisokaido Road, by Kunisada. The vogue for travel prints was started by Hiroshige with his immensely popular series of post stations of the Tokaido Road. As the Edo government faltered in the mid-century, censorship forbade the illustration of actors and hence artists like Kuniyoshi and Kunisada developed a form called the mitate - a way of picturing actors whilst appearing to show something else. Hence this series is nominally a travel guide to the Kisokaido road (the inland route to Kyoto), but as this piece illustrates, was a thinly veiled exercise in portraying popular actors in sometimes subversive roles. The necessary secrecy makes the latter identification consequently difficult.
Kunisada capitalises on the cunning innovations of the preceding Tokaido series and borrows landscapes and stations to portray yet more actors and kabuki roles, set in a glorious riot of pattern and quirky, other, meaning. Here we see the actor, Seki Sanjuro III in the famous role of Inukai Genpachi. The setting is from the extraordinary and supernatural novel, Hakkenden inu no soshi no uchi ("Book of The Eight Dog Heroes"). Originally a novel, which took thirty years to complete, the story was quickly turned into a popular kabuki play. The complex plot narrates the story of the eight offspring of a supernatural marriage between a princess — Princess Fuse — and her father’s dog, Yatsufusa. Shamed and tricked into the conception, she decides to kill herself and the eight beads of her rosary, each representing a Buddhist virtue, become crystal orbs and disperse, the children being reborn to normal mothers sixteen years later. The plot twists and turns as the eight brothers become acquainted as adults. Each of the brothers possesses supernatural powers. The first act of the play shows the sometimes comical scenes of the brothers, none of whom know each other, becoming acquainted and then pledging to revive the fortunes of their family, the Satomi. The last act of the kabuki drama, which was wildly popular with audiences, involves the brothers assembling at an inn and defeating a gigantic flying cat. The performances utilised all of the latest special effects to bring to life the aerial combat between the brothers and the transformed witch.
This is a fine print, the character brought to life by Sanjuro III… the actor portrayed in this same manner by Kuniyoshi in a print from the same year and the same performance. Colour, impression and condition are all very fine - quite rare in this quality - really a very impressive print.
Publisher: Kagaya Yasubei.
36cm x 25cm.
