Drawing for Eizo and Matsuomaru

This 1947 watercolor study explores the kabuki theme of Eizō and Matsuomaru — a dramatic scene from the play "Sugawara and the Secrets of Calligraphy" in which a feudal retainer sacrifices his own son to save the heir of a wrongfully exiled nobleman. The watercolor medium gives the preparatory work a luminous, provisional quality that contrasts with the sharp-edged finality of Sekino's printed versions of the same subject.