<b>OGINO IZABURO I AS KATORI-HIME</b> / Torri Kiyomasu IIc. 1720<b>SOLD</b></em>

Details

Torii Kiyomasu II (1706-1763), a print designer, book illustrator, and painter, worked from 1718 to 1760. Thus, his active period spanned the production of monochrome prints, with many having brushed-on hand-coloring, through the years when two- and three-color designs made with woodblock-printed colors came to define Ukiyo-e in the 1740s–1750s. It remains unclear precisely what this artist’s relationship was to Torii Kiyomasu I (act. c. 1704–1714), but he is accepted today as either a direct pupil or follower who might have also had a connection with Torii Kiyonobu I. Scholars consider his oeuvre somewhat uneven, but the early hand-colored prints, such as the design offered here, are viewed as fine, restrained portrayals of actors on the kabuki stage. Aside from actor prints, Kiyomasu II also produced a few kachôga (bird and flower prints), landscapes, and literary subjects (in a Tosa style).

Connoisseur's Note

The Actor and Performance:

Ogino Isaburô I (1703-1748).

Ogino, born in Ise, began his career in Kyôto as a disciple of the actor Hagino Yaegiri, who gave him the name Hagino Isaburô. During the early years, he performed koyaku roles (child roles). In 3/1723, Hagino relocated to Edo and took the name Ogino Isaburô I. Less than a year later, his ranking in the Edo actor critiques (yakusha hyôbanki) in their wakashû-gata section (adolescent roles) was “superior - superior - excellent” (jô-jô-kichi), a ranking that he maintained throughout his career until his death in 1748. Thus, for more than two decades, Ogino was a popular wakashû-gata and waka-onnagata actor (young maiden or princess roles, beginning around 1728). He also had success in tachiyaku (leading-man) roles starting around 1738 and performed in the opposing styles of aragoto (“rough business”) and wagoto (“soft manner”). He also excelled in budôgoto (warrior roles).

In Kiyomasu’s print, Ogino, an adult male actor, performs in a wakashû-gata, his attire and hairstyle signaling the feminized persona of the wakashû (young man or boy). Wakashû-kabuki (“boy’s kabuki”), plays featuring male adolescents in the roles of women, were staged as early as 1617 as an alternative to onna-kabuki (“women’s kabuki”), which was banned in various provinces for its links to prostitution, lewd and drunken behavior, and occasional violence in the 1610s–1620s, and finally throughout the country in 1629. Boy’s kabuki became very popular in the 1630s–1640s, but as with onna-kabuki, the attractive adolescent performers also brought about extensive unlicensed prostitution and disruptive behavior. Boy’s kabuki was restricted at various times between 1642–1651 and finally banned in 1651–1652 (possibly in the summer of 1651) after the death on 4/20/1651 of the shogun Tokugawa Iemitsu (who favored boy’s kabuki).

Ogino as Katori-hime is shown in the type of role at which he excelled — waka-onnagata or young women and princess roles. He stands while holding a woven straw hat (amigasa). Such headgear could be used to conceal one’s identity, but whether that applies here is uncertain, as the particulars of this scene have so far not been identified. Ogino’s murasaki-boshi (purple headcloth) or covering of the shaved forelock signifies an onnagata on the kabuki stage. He wears a sophisticated example of restrained and elegant kimono design. Flying geese populate both the upper and lower robes. The “swinging-sleeve” (furisode) style was, by convention, worn primarily by children and unmarried young girls, but here it becomes a semiotic emblem of the wakashû. A large, round jômon or fixed crest of the Ogino acting lineage decorates the right sleeve.

Hand-colored hosoban from the early period of ukiyo-e have become exceedingly rare, with the vast majority of surviving impressions already residing in museums. Most of these designs are known by only one or two impressions, making opportunities for acquisitions quite scarce.

Written by John Fiorillo, ViewingJapanesePrints.net