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Gain access to this incredible resource through either a monthly or a yearly subscription and search the entire collection from your desktop, compare multiple images side by side and zoom into the minute details of the images. Visit www.davidrumsey.com/amica for more information on the collection, click on the link below the revolving thumbnail to the right, or email us at amica@luna-img.com . Creator Name: Katsukawa, Shunsho Creator Nationality: Asian; Far East Asian; Japanese Creator Role: Artist Creator Dates/Places: Japanese; 1726-1792 Asia,East Asia,Japan Creator Active Place: Asia,East Asia,Japan Creator Name-CRT: Katsukawa Shunsho Title: The actor Ichikawa Danzo III as Shoki the Demon Queller in the play Dare Moyo Kumo ni Inazuma (Dandyish Design: Lightning Amid Clouds) Title Type: preferred View: Full View Creation Start Date: 1768 Creation End Date: 1768 Creation Date: Performed at the Morita Theater from the fifteenth day of the tenth month, 1768 Creation Place: Asia,East Asia,Japan Object Type: Prints Classification Term: Woodblock Materials and Techniques: Woodblock print. Dimensions: Hosoban; 33.2 x 15.2 cm Inscriptions: SIGNATURE: Shunsho gaARTIST'S SEAL: Hayashi in jar-shaped outline AMICA Contributor: The Art Institute of Chicago Owner Location: Chicago, Illinois, USA ID Number: 1939.698 Credit Line: The Art Institute of Chicago, Frederick W. Gookin Collection Rights: http://www.artic.edu/aic/rights/main.rights.html Context: The production at the Morita Theater in the tenth month of 1768 seems to have been based on a famous love triangle: the rivalry between the handsome playboys Nagoya Sanza and Fuwa Banzaemon for the affections of the courtesan Katsuragi. Shunsho made at least one more hosoban print of this production, this one showing Danzo III in Banzaemon's characteristic costume decorated with the striking cloud-and-lightning pattern (see 'The Actor's Image' catalogue, No. 78, p.226) that gave the play its name.The libretto for the day's proceedings does not survive, but the hodgepodge of roles recorded indicates that a plethora of extra material was piled onto the basic Nagoya Sanza/Fuwa Banzaemon story. Danzo III is recorded as having also played the sumo wrestler Inazuma (literally, 'Lightning,' a further reference to Banzaemon's costume), as well as ferocious Shoki the Demon Queller, shown here. Sakata Hangoro II played, among other roles, the Ghost of Daruma (Bodhidharma), possibly opposite Danzo III's Shoki!Shoki(C: Zhong Kui), a character from Chinese mythology, has acquired a host of legends, but in all of them he figures as a repeller of sickness and evil and a formidable chastiser of demons, and he is always depicted with bulging eyes and a profusion of hairand beard, wearing the black robe, cap, and boots of an official, and brandishing a sword. In Edo-period Japan Shoki became a popular folk deity who, as in China, cured sickness and warded off evil, and who often appears in paintings and prints wielding his sword against small horned demons. He is generally depicted in a pseudo-Chinese ink-painting style, evident even in this 'Kabuki' version, particularly in the exciting calligraphic ink lines that Shunsho used to describe the flying drapery.Perhaps because this forceful character is here incarnated in the vehement aragoto style of Kabuki acting, in this print Shoki seems even more than usually dynamic. His boots are planted so solidly upon the ground that he appears immovable, but his arms and sleeves and the ribbons on his cap all seem to be flying off in different directions.When the background was its original unfaded blue, the flesh-colored body makeup and the few small areas printed in white must have contrasted even more sharply with the somber blacks, grays, and blues of the costume. AMICA ID: AIC_.1939.698 AMICA Library Year: 1998 Media Metadata Rights: Copyright The Art Institute of Chicago, 1998 AMICA PUBLIC RIGHTS: a) Access to the materials is granted for personal and non-commercial use. b) A full educational license for non-commercial use is available from Cartography Associates at www.davidrumsey.com/amica/institution_subscribe.html c) Licensed users may continue their examination of additional materials provided by Cartography Associates, and d) commercial rights are available from the rights holder. Home
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