The Second Nakamura Sukegoro as an Old Man 1778 - 1798

This woodblock print captures Nakamura Sukegoro, a Kabuki actor, as an old man, rendered by Katsukawa Shunkō in eighteenth-century Japan. The actor strains, pulling a cloth tight with his hands; this gesture, of tension and physical exertion, carries a profound visual weight. Consider the iconography of the straining figure across millennia. We see echoes of the Laocoön, wrestling with snakes, or even Atlas, bearing the weight of the world. The body, contorted and burdened, becomes a vessel for expressing intense emotional states. Perhaps the actor’s effort is but a metaphor for the relentless passage of time. He is hunched, his face etched with the signs of aging. He confronts us with the vulnerability inherent in our own mortality. His struggle reflects our collective subconscious anxieties about aging and decay. This enduring motif reminds us of the cyclical nature of existence, how symbols resurface, evolve, and acquire new layers of meaning across history.