The Actor Playing a Farmer 

This is Utagawa Kunisada’s woodblock print, “The Actor Playing a Farmer.” Kunisada created his art during the Edo period in Japan, a time marked by strict social hierarchies. Kabuki theater, where actors often blurred the lines between social classes, thrived in this environment. Gender further complicated these theatrical portrayals. Here, Kunisada presents a Kabuki actor in character, a narrative intersection of identities: the actor, the character, and the artist, each shaped by societal expectations. In Kabuki theater, actors were known to express emotions with intensity. Here, though, the actor’s face seems to be holding back some emotion. A farmer he may be playing, but a sword at his side betrays the true class from which he comes. Kunisada asks us to consider the complexities of representation, blurring the lines between reality and performance, identity and role. How does seeing this print make you feel about the ways we perform our own identities?