Shunkōsai Hokushū (春好斎北洲) (artist ca 1808 – 1832)
Onoe Kikugorō III in seven hit roles - (Onoe Kikugorō Ōatari shichiyaku - 尾上菊五郎大当七役)
1820
10 in x 14.375 in (Overall dimensions) Japanese woodblock print
Signed: Shunkōsai Hokushū ga
春好斎北洲画
Publisher seals: Honya Seishichi
(Marks 123 - seal 25-181) and Oki
Valtion Taidemuseo (The Finnish National Gallery) This print is linked to the play Kikutsuki Irifune monogatari performed at the Kado theater in 7/1820.
Osaka Prints notes: "The plot of Kikuzuki irifune monogatari (菊月入船噺) is unknown to us, but it is one of the so-called Kasane mono (plays about Kasane: 累物). The tale is based on actual events as well as legends from the 17th century involving an extremely jealous and "ugly" woman named Kasane whose husband Yoemon murders her at the Kinu River in Hanyû Village. In one version of the legend, her vengeful ghost haunts various family members until she achieves salvation through prayers offered by Saint Yûten. In another adaptation, Kasane's spirit returns to possess another of Yoemon's wives. The ghost story became a significant work within the Edo-period genre of the ghost-story (kaidan-mono: 怪談物), with many playwrights, both in kabuki and the puppet theater, adapting the tale. Interestingly, virtually all retellings included the murder scene at the Kinu River."
Kikugorō III was famous for his ghost roles, which explains the predominant positioning of the figure on the left side. The others being portrayed are:
1) Kanō Shirojirō [狩野四郎次郎] in the upper left
2) Tenjiku Tokubei「天竺徳兵衛」in the upper right
3) Zato Tokuichi [座頭徳市], the blind musician - actually Tenjiku Tokubei - in the middle right
4) Fuwa Banzaemon [不破伴左衛門] in the middle left
5) Kasane [かさね] in the lower right
6) Kinugawa Yoemon「絹川与右衛門」, Kasane's husband, in the lower left
7) Kasane no Reikon [かさねの霊魂], the ghost of Kasane, along the left side of the print
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I have wondered for years about the motif of the ghost on the left side. Especially puzzling has been that area just below the ghost, but now I think I know what it is: a nagare kanjō (流灌頂), a consecration cloth hung between four bamboo poles. In some plays when the villain goes to water the plant beneath the cloth a ghost holding a baby, an ubume (産女), a woman birthing ghost, rises up. That is surely what is intended here. (JSV)
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Kikugorō III as an ubume (産女)
In a 2011 article, The End of the “World”: Tsuruya Nanboku IV’s Female Ghosts and Late-Tokugawa Kabuki by Satoko Shimazaki in the Monumenta Nipponica (66/2) the author wrote on pages 209-10:
“Yotsuya kaidan was first staged in 1825 at the Nakamura-za 中村座, a theater in Edo. In act 5 of that production, the ghost of Oiwa, played by Onoe Kikugorō 尾上菊五郎 III (1784–1849), emerged from a consecration cloth with an infant cradled in her arms. Oiwa was thus figured as an ubume 産女 (literally, “a woman giving birth”), a particular type of ghost associated with pregnancy and childbirth that would have had deep psychological resonances for the audience of Nanboku’s day. Nanboku employs the ubume in a number of earlier plays—indeed, it appears in almost all of his major ghost plays. Ubume were ubiquitous in the theater and literature of this period, appearing again and again not only in Nanboku’s works but also in the fiction of major writers such as Shikitei Sanba 式亭三馬 (1776–1822), Santō Kyōden 山東京伝 (1761–1816), and Kyokutei Bakin 曲亭馬琴 (1767–1848). Our interpretation of the meaning of this scene in Yotsuya kaidan must be tied, then, to a larger understanding of Nanboku’s and the kabuki theater’s mobilization of the ubume as a dramatic trope and of the roles the ubume played in the broader context of nineteenth-century cultural production. In other words, we must ask why ghosts in the theater and literature of the early nineteenth century were associated so pervasively with pregnancy, and also why the ubume became so popular as a motif, particularly in the first three decades of the century.”
The scene in the play is later described: "...Iemon, coming through a temple gate to pour water on a consecration cloth hung between four bamboo poles—an object known by the name of the ritual in which it is used: nagare kanjō 流灌頂 (literally, “flowing consecration”). Iemon is offering a prayer for the repose of the spirits of Oiwa and their son, even as he shudders with fear at the prospect of his dead wife’s revenge. The water in the ladle has turned into fire—a “soul flame,” a common visual representation of a spirit that either accompanies or stands in for the ghost itself. [Soon] ...Oiwa’s ghost rises from the cloth, hugging the baby to her breast."
Later on page 211 Shimazaki wrote: "Although Yotsuya kaidan was staged approximately twenty times during the last forty years of the Tokugawa period in both Edo and Osaka, this scene was dropped after the first production in 1825 and replaced with a special effect in which Oiwa emerges from a burning lantern. With the exception of a few modern revivals it played no part in the play’s subsequent performative or cinematic reception."
[A 'soul flame' is a shinka 神火.]
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Sebastian Izzard wrote in his catalogue Utagawa Kunisada: His World Revisited on page 56: "The actor Onoe Matsusuke II (1784-1849) - he became Kikugorō III in 1815 - was the adopted son of Onoe Shōroku... From Shōroku he learned the quick-change techniques needed to play ghosts, and Kikugorō soon established a reputation as a specialist in the sub-group of vengeful spirits. These parts were often written for him by his friend, the playwright Tsuruya Namboku IV. Kikugorō's quick-change technique became so adept that he was able to take up to nine roles in the same production."
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Illustrated in Schätze der Kamigata: Japanische Farbholzschnitte aus Osaka 1780-1880, MNHA (Musée national d'histoire et d'art Luxembourg), 2012, p. 112, #237.
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The second seal on this print, Oki, also belongs to the house of Honya Seishichi. In this case it represents the family name Tamaoki Seishichi (玉置清七).
Honya Seishichi (本屋清七) (publisher)
actor prints (yakusha-e - 役者絵) (genre)
Kyōto-Osaka prints (kamigata-e - 上方絵) (genre)
Onoe Kikugorō III (三代目尾上菊五郎: 11/1815-3/1848) (actor)
Tsuruya Nanboku IV (四代目鶴屋南北) (author)
Fuwa Banzaemon (不破伴左衛門) (role)