Actor Matsumoto Kōshirō VII as the White-Bearded Ikyū Possibly 1929
Dimensions 15 × 10 1/16 in. (38.1 × 25.56 cm) (image)23 × 19 × 1 1/2 in. (58.42 × 48.26 × 3.81 cm) (outer frame)
This is Actor Matsumoto Kōshirō VII as the White-Bearded Ikyū, a woodblock print by Natori Shunsen. Look at the white eyebrows that turn into red horns! I’m thinking about Shunsen carving the block for the face, and the way the figure emerges from the background, the flat blocks of color forming the actor’s stern gaze. What was Shunsen thinking about when he was making this print? It's as if he's asking us: How do you capture the essence of a performer, the intensity of a character, in something that is essentially just a flat pattern? That dragon robe! The artist knows how to do pattern and meaning. The face and the robe are both flat and deep. There's something ancient about this way of seeing. It’s like he's in conversation with centuries of mark-making and image-making. It reminds me how the work of painters builds on each other, a constant exchange of ideas and techniques across generations.
Comments
First design of the supplement set. Based on Matsumoto Kōshirō VII as the White-Bearded Ikyū, in reality Iga Heinaizaemon, in the scene Miuraya kōshi saki of the play Sukeroku: Yukari no Edo zakura 助六由縁江戸桜 三浦屋格子先 (Sukeroku: Flower of Edo), performed at the Kabuki Theater, March 1929. Ikyū (identified by the long white beard) is a wealthy old samurai who tries to come between the lovers Hanakawado Sukeroku, a dashing otokodate (chivalrous commoner) and the beautiful prostitute Agemaki of the Miuraya.
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