"Just a minute!!" One of the most dramatic moments in the entire kabuki repertoire; as the loud voice rings out from the hana-michi walkway in the middle of the auditorium, all eyes turn to see the actor who has just entered.

As always with this role, it will be a member of the Ichikawa clan - in this case Ichikawa Ebizo, performing in 1796. He strikes an incredibly theatrical pose, his face drawn into an exaggerated scowl and his angular and voluminous clothing creating the most wonderful dramatic effect.

So much of that wonderful scene is packed into the tiny rectangle of this print; the samurai-eboshi headgear, the sujikuma vermillion makeup, and even his armored breast-plate. But dominating the image, as it must dominate the scene in the auditorium, is the famous Ichikawa family crest emblazoned on his hugely oversized sleeves - the three nested sake cups on rust-brown fabric.

We instantly know who this is, and what is about to happen - the bad guys are about to be put to rout. There is no scene in any theatre in the world more cliched than this, and none that is more eagerly anticipated by the audience.

The man who designed this print was Utagawa Kunimasa, and in my view, it is astonishing to think that this was created more than 200 years ago - it looks 'modern' enough to have been drawn just yesterday. What an incredible impact prints like this must have made when they first started arriving in Europe!

It has been twenty-five years since I first set foot in Japan, but I have yet to visit the kabuki theatre. In this I am not particularly unusual - I am sure that many, perhaps most, Japanese have never been either. I suppose that somewhere along the line, I will get a chance to go, and I suspect that when I do, I will feel right at home; after all, one can't be involved with making Japanese prints for twenty-five years without developing some kind of understanding of kabuki, just by osmosis!

David
Monday, November 28, 2005

(Here's the print in context in the Treasure Chest series.)

Posted by Dave Bull at 03:43 PM | Comments (0)

Only four spaces left in the series this year, but so many images are begging me for inclusion! I think I have done pretty well this year in bringing you works by designers with whom you are probably not familiar, and this is yet another example. What we have here is a leaf from a woodblock picture book published in 1817 in Nagoya. Entitled Fugyo Gaso (or alternatively Fukei Gaso), and designed by Cho Gessho, it has been described by expert Jack Hillier as "a ... picture-book which can be recommended to every student of Japanese design." Mr. Hillier was most impressed by Gessho's ability to position his image content within the frame, and in his description of this book, used the word 'balance' over and over again in his praise of the artist.

I think it is amusing though, that while I was part way along with the carving, and doing a bit of research into the background of the designer, I came across a set of images of the entire book, and was shocked to learn that what I was making was not Gessho's complete picture, but merely the leftmost half of it! But if I hadn't told you, I am certain that you would not have felt that the picture was in any way wrong or 'missing something'. Balance, indeed ...

It is also worth emphasizing that images of this type are not 'ukiyo-e'. Their disjointed drawing and roughly applied colouring is in strong contrast to the tight control that ukiyo-e of that period was capable of. This is a bit of a problem for me, as my years of ukiyo-e training make me want to 'fix' these 'defects' as I go along, and I had to constantly remind myself "It's OK to leave brush strokes on the bamboo!" So perhaps my print falls short when seen from either side - not neat and clean enough to be attractive, and not rough enough to have the life that was perhaps in the original.

But I like it, and I think it brings a nice change of pace to our Treasure Chest (or should I have perhaps called it the 'Surprise Chest'?)

David
Monday, November 14, 2005

(Here's the print in context in the Treasure Chest series.)

Posted by Dave Bull at 12:58 PM | Comments (1)