Shunkōsai Hokushū (春好斎北洲) (artist ca 1808 – 1832)

Nakamura Utaemon III (中村歌右衛門) as the peasant Gosaku who is actually Ishikawa Goemon (百姓五作実は石川五右衛門) in the play Keisei Setsugekka [けいせい雪月花]

Print

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Date:01/1830
Dimensions:9.75 in x 15 in (Overall dimensions) Medium:Japanese color woodblock print
Inscription:Signed: Shunkōsai Hokushū ga
春好斎北洲画
Artist's seal: Hokushū
Publisher: Honya Seishichi (Marks 123 - seal 25-527)
Carver: Kasuke
Links Museum of Fine Arts, Boston - without artist's seal
Achenbach Foundation - without artist's seal
Waseda University - without artist's seal
Princeton University Art Museum - without artist's seal
The National Museum of Asian Art - with artist's seal
National Gallery of Victoria - without artist's seal
Hankyu Culture Foundation - with artist's seal
British Museum - with artist's seal Description:This is one of the finest products of the carver's art. Enlarge this print and look carefully at the figures hidden behind the scrim. Brilliant! In fact, this image in a modified form is used as the cover of the paperback edition of Masterful Illusions: Japanese Prints in the Anne van Biema Collection. We have added a jpeg so you can see it, too.

In that catalogue it says: "Hokushū produced this subtle and complex design near the end of his artistic career, when his close collaboration with the master block engraver Kasuke, whose name appears in the oblong seal in the far lower-left corner, resulted in prints of surpassing aesthetic quality. Printed with luxurious details such as metallic pigments, this unique design is a masterpiece of conceptual originality, exquisite engraving, and technically outstanding printing - an appropriate commemoration of the virtuoso actor Utaemon III's first performance of his original play."

Dean Schwaab wrote in Osaka Prints on page 148: Keisei Setsugekka was written by Utaemon III and featured this actor playing the character of Ishikawa Goemon. Even Hokushū bestirred himself for the great performance of the spring of 1830... though he appears to have produced a single print in 1831 and another in 1832, this was the last year during which he produced more than a single print. This composition is very difficult to see clearly in small reproduction. The actor stands with hands clasped and face in the aragoto mie in front of a mesh curtain that is made to simulate smoke, and this was probably an actual stage device used during the performance. If one looks carefully at the curtain, the faces and forms of other members of the cast are visible among the stylized smoke, probably watching the actor and waiting for their entry cues."

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Illustrated in:

1) color in Kamigata yakusha-e shūsei (Collected Kamigata Actor Prints), vol. 1, Ikeda Bunko Library, Osaka 1997, no. 177.

2) color in Schätze der Kamigata: Japanische Farbholzschnitte aus Osaka 1780-1880, MNHA (Musée national d'histoire et d'art Luxembourg), 2012, p. 136, #282, 2012.

3) a full-page, black and white reproduction in The Male Journey in Japanese Prints by Roger Keyes, the University of California Press with the Museum of Fine Arts of San Francisco, 1989, fig. 179, p. 129.

4) a full-page color reproduction in Masterful Illusions: Japanese Prints in the Anne van Biema Collection with Ann Yonemura, et al., University of Washington Press, 2002, page 167, no.57. As noted above a detail of this print appears on the cover of this catalog. The text reads partially:

"The exploits of the rōnin (masterless samurai), bandit, and rebel Ishikawa Goemon were popular subjects of puppet and kabuki plays... Here, in the premier performance of Keisai setsugekka at the Kado Theater at the New Year of 1830, the Osaka superstar Nakamura Utaemon III plays Ishikawa Goemon in a play that he wrote under his pen name, Kanazawa Ryūgoku. Goemon, forever in flight from authorities and enemies, here wears the disguise of a farmer.

At first glance, the actor appears to stand alone onstage, but behind the black mesh curtain patterned with cloudlike swirls suggesting smoke are the shadowy figures of warriors. The actor's hands form a gesture associated with the elusive powers of ninja, spies or secret agents who infiltrated enemy territory to gather information, steal documents, or commit assassination. Here the smoke conceals Goemon from the armed warriors who pursue him."

5) a small color reproduction in Osaka Prints by Dean J. Schwaab, Rizzoli, 1989, #137, page 148.
Related entities Nakamura Utaemon III (三代目中村歌右衛門) (actor)
Kyōto-Osaka prints (kamigata-e - 上方絵) (genre)
actor prints (yakusha-e - 役者絵) (genre)
Honya Seishichi (本屋清七) (publisher)

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