Kurumahiki

'Kurumahiki' ('The Carriage Pulling') is a scene from the kabuki play 'Sugawara Denju Tenarai Kagami,' featuring the confrontation between the triplet brothers Umeomaru, Sakuramaru, and Matsuomaru before the carriage of Fujiwara no Tokihira. The scene is an aragoto (rough-style) tableau, with the three brothers in vibrantly contrasting costumes, their kumadori makeup intense, holding mie poses of accumulating force. The print likely captures the moment of the carriage being torn apart, with bold patterns on the robes and saturated color blocks. Such [yakusha-e](/glossary/yakusha-e) imagery descends from a long tradition of capturing specific theatrical moments, and the mokuhanga technique supports the dense color registration the subject demands. Within Takahashi Hiromitsu's apparent focus on kabuki subjects, 'Kurumahiki' stands among the recognizable scenes that any artist working in theatrical prints would address, alongside the other titles in his apparent catalog drawn from the kabuki repertoire.