The Allen Memorial Museum has organised two concurrent Japanese prints and printmaker exhibitions over the summer to look at Japan’s rich literary heritage, showing how Japanese printmakers have visualised and reimagined classical texts across centuries: Shining Prints: The Tale of Genji Reimagined in Japan and From Page to Stage: Kabuki’s Heroic History Plays in Japanese Woodblock Prints.
The kabuki exhibition explores how Japan’s theatrical tradition transformed epic historical narratives, including the Tale of the Heike and related stories featuring overlapping characters and themes – into dramatic visual spectacles by highlighting prints (yakusha-e) depicting kabuki performances of such well-known epics as The Revenge of the Soga Brothers, The Chronicle of Yoshitsune, and the enduring revenge tale The Treasury of Loyal Retainers, or Chushingura, bringing to life the legendary 47 loyal ronin (a wandering samurai with no master), who patiently plotted vengeance against the lord who deceived their master. This type of theatre was meant to pull the audience into another and very different world – the term kabuki is comprised of three characters, ka (sing), bu (dance), and ki (skill), but it was derived from the term kabuku, which means ‘to lean’, as in leaning away from the norm, or out of the ordinary, bizarre.
Yakusha-e, literally ‘actor pictures’, have been sold to kabuki enthusiasts since the Japanese Edo period (1603-1868). Japan’s popular dance-drama was perhaps the brightest expression of this ‘floating world’, captivating audiences since the early 1600s. The woodblock prints would often depict the actors striking an intense pose, eyes crossed, and limbs held rigid. These kabuki prints were collected by theatre-goers as souvenirs of performances and favourite stars – in the same way blockbuster film posters are collected today.
Kabuki theatre was one of the most dynamic art forms to emerge from Japan’s ‘pleasure quarters’, the extraordinary districts that thrived in major Japanese cities during the 18th and 19th centuries. With dramatic storylines, lavish costumes and celebrity actors, kabuki was the ideal subject for Japanese print designers. In an age of limited popular entertainment, the actors of the floating world aroused enormous interest. Portraits of them in full costume on stage were widely circulated. Intimidating kabuki male roles called aragoto, exerting a sinister presence in the Edo-style, had a particular pull. The theatre was an all-male preserve, and ‘female impersonators’, known as onnagata, were employed to play out highly stylised feminine roles.
The first recorded performance of kabuki occurred in 1603, given by a group of female entertainers. It is highly probable that dancing troupes were in operation before this date, and the 1604 performances featured a miko, a ‘shrine maiden’, who may have come from a shamanist background. All we know of her is that she was called Okuni and is said to have come from the great shrine of Izumo. She and her troupe gave their performances on the dried-up Kamogawa riverbed in Kyoto, on almost the exact spot of the present-day Minami-za theatre. The dances appear to have been folk or quasi-religious, similar to the bon odori still performed all over Japan during the summer festival of the dead. Okuni’s theatre was extremely popular and was described as kabuku – an archaic term, unfamiliar to modern Japanese, meaning literally ‘tilted’, but implying that which is strange or outlandish, and perhaps somewhat risqué.
In 1629, however, the shogunate banned women from the stage. The reason for this is generally given as immorality – the prostitution having become more unacceptable. It seems, however, more likely this was simply a convenient excuse, and that the real reason behind the ban was the perceived threat the reputation of actresses presented to public order, on account of their popularity not simply with the commoners – who made up the majority of the audience – but also with the samurai class which, the government thought, should be above such vulgar public display.
Kabuki continued, however, to be performed by young boys who had yet to reach maturity and shave their heads in the universal samurai hairstyle of the day. This became the so-called wakashu kabuki ‘young boy kabuki’, and in 1652, by order of the shogunate, the boys suffered the same fate as the women and for exactly the same reasons. Surprisingly, kabuki performances were allowed to continue provided the actors were mature males – with shaven heads. This became known as yaro kabuki and, although the term is no longer used, developed into the kabuki we know today.
In this exhibition, there is an 18th-century print depicting Ichikawa Datezo as Kajiwara Genta by Ippitsusai Buncho. Kajiwara Genta is a historical figure, a 12th-century samurai, often portrayed as a heroic and skilled warrior, known for his bravery and fighting skills, especially the battles between the Genji and Heike clans during the late Heian and early Kamakura periods. His character is found in several popular series in the 1770s and 80s in such plays as Genta Kando and Yuki Nazuna Saiwai Soga. Buncho developed a more realistic style of actor portraiture, together with Katsukawa Shunsho, and produced many works in hosoban (small vertical) format. He also had a very singular approach to his subjects: his figures are very slender but described with rounded, swelling lines that give them a sure sense of volume. His unusual talent for bringing out the role portrayed by means of very small variations in the actor’s expression or deportment produced a very idiosyncratic personal style.
Tsuruya Kokei (b 1946) is one of Japan’s leading artists of woodblock theatre prints, and his work is represented in this exhibition. Lawrence Smith, in Modern Japanese Prints 1912-1989, writes, ‘Tsuruya worked as a company “salaryman” until turning suddenly in 1978 to the production of woodblock prints of actors performing at the Kabuki-za in Tokyo. He began with bust portraits (okubi-e) inspired by the work of the artist Sharaku (worked 1794-95).’
The artist was admired by the President of Shochiku, the company operating the Kabuki-za, who gradually interested others in his work, until the editions reached 72 and his work attracted a dedicated following. The artist’s own website gives us an update on his career: ‘After 22 years of producing kabuki actor prints at Kabuki-za, the artist has released a series of self-portraits, Loneliness, and the series Cat Kabuki (out of love for his cat). The current series he is working on is entitled Five Styles of Banzai-Ukiyo-e, a series of portraits of ukiyo-e artists. In March this year, he announced that the third and last piece from the latest series Banzai-Ukiyo-e San-en had finally been completed.
A highlight of the exhibition is a print from the Utagawa School by Utagawa Kunisada III depicting a popular scene from Kanadehon Chushingura, the classic drama of the 47 ronin, enacted at the Kabuki-za in Tokyo. In Act 5, the villain Sadakuro robs and kills the elderly Yoichibei one rainy night on the Yamazaki Highway. He stares over his shoulder with an angry frown as he pulls Yoichibei’s money bag away from him, the hapless victim still clutching the end of the drawstring as he falls to the ground. Sadakuro carries a tattered umbrella and wears a black kimono with a geometric pattern. On the left, the ronin Hayano Kampei is out hunting in the same area, and hearing a sound, shoots into the darkness. Upon discovering the body, he mistakenly believes that he has killed a man. Here, he lifts his hat with one hand as he shoulders his gun with the other, a straw raincoat tied around his neck. The composition has been divided diagonally to feature the two incidents in the same print to give a sense of the action.
From 22 August to 24 May 2026, both exhibitions, Allen Memorial Art Museum, Ohio, amam.oberlin.edu
