Ryūsai Shigeharu (柳斎重春) (artist 1802 – 1852)

Arashi Rikan II (嵐璃寛) as Osome (お染) on the right and Ichikawa Danzō V as Hisamatsu (久松) on the left in the play Somemoyo Imose no Kadomatsu [染模様妹背門松]

Print

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Date:09/1830
Dimensions:20.25 in x 15 in (Overall dimensions) Medium:Japanese color woodblock print
Inscription:Signed: Gyokuryūtei Shigeharu ga
玉柳亭重春画
Artist's seal: Yamaguchi uji Shigeharu
Publisher: Honya Seishichi (Marks 123 - seal 25-527)
Links Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg - left panel (trimmed)
Hankyu Culture Foundation - right panel
Hankyu Culture Foundation - left panel
Royal Museums of Art and History, Belgium (via Cultural Japan) - right-hand panel only
Lyon Collection - a closely related diptych by Shigeharu Description:A diptych with bust portraits with a border of New Year's game cards, balls, battledore (hagoita 羽子板) and shuttlecock (hane 羽) and calligraphy.

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Unlike other kabuki themes the story of Osome and Hisamatsu is included in nearly all the volumes written about this form of theater.

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The National Theater of Japan wrote: "Hisamatsu was originally the son of a samurai, but was brought up as the adopted child of Kyusaku of Nozaki Village, a peasant and the older brother of Hisamatsu’s wet nurse. He is apprenticed to an oil merchant in Osaka, and falls in love with Osome, the merchant’s daughter, but is sent home to Nozaki Village due to money trouble. Osome, pregnant with Hisamatsu’s child, comes from Osaka to visit the village just as marriage talks between Hisamatsu and his fiancée, Omitsu, are going ahead. Hisamatsu decides to commit double suicide with Osome, and Omitsu, who sympathizes with them, backs out and becomes a nun."

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The game of hanetsuki (羽根つき)

Like so many other things in Japanese culture, there is often more than one term or name for what a person is looking at or trying to describe. Artists often were known under various names. Geographical locations were renamed or reassigned in such a way that only a scholar has an easy grasp of where they were and still are, but can't be found on contemporary maps, The game of hanetsuki - similar to badminton - is, in part, no different. A battledore or hagoita can also be called a kogi-ita (胡鬼板) and the shuttlecock or hane can also be called a kogi no ko (胡鬼の子). "...it is considered that the game of hanetsuki... was played during the new year to ward off evils." At some point "...painted and gilded battledores became gifts for young girls."

A hane, aka kogi no ko, also has a third name, a hago (羽子). It is feathers stuck into a soapberry (mukuroji 無患子) seed. At New Year's girls played a game called oibane (追い羽根) or 'chasing the shuttlecock.' As early as the Song dynasty (960-1279) in China a game using a shuttlecocks was played, but that was done with the feet - very much like hacky sack - and not with paddles. The use of paddles here may have been a purely Japanese invention. Originally in Japan the use of the hagoita and hane was not a game, but more a part of a ritual. Hitting the shuttlecock repeatedly, keeping it in the air, may have had a magical significance related to luck or aging or both.

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Illustrated:

1) in color in Ikeda Bunko, Kamigata Yakusha-e Shusei, (Collected Kamigata Actor Prints) volume 2, Ikeda Bunko Library, Osaka, 1998, no. 143

2) and the right-hand panel in black and white in 原色浮世絵大百科事典 (Genshoku Ukiyoe Daihyakka Jiten), vol. 9, p. 137, #290. The left-hand panel is illustrated in color in the same volume on p. 107, #247.
Related entities Ichikawa Danzō V (五代目市川団蔵: 4/1819 to 6/1845) (actor)
Arashi Rikan II (二代目嵐璃寛: 9/1828 - 6/1837) (actor)
Honya Seishichi (本屋清七) (publisher)
Kyōto-Osaka prints (kamigata-e - 上方絵) (genre)
actor prints (yakusha-e - 役者絵) (genre)
The Love Suicide of Osome and Hisamatsu (染模様妹背門松) (kabuki)

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