Ichikawa Danjūrō V as a Skeleton, Spirit of the Renegade Monk Seigen, and Iwai Hanshirō IV as the Cherry Princess, in “Flower of Edo: An Ichikawa Saga” (Edo no Hana Mimasu Soga)

Held by the Art Institute of Chicago and dated 1783, this Katsukawa Shunsho yakusha-e captures one of the most striking transformation scenes of late-eighteenth-century Edo kabuki: Ichikawa Danjuro V as the skeleton spirit of the renegade monk Seigen confronting Iwai Hanshiro IV as the Cherry Princess in the play Edo no Hana Mimasu Soga (Flower of Edo: An Ichikawa Saga). The Seigen-Sakurahime narrative, drawn from medieval Buddhist legend, had become a fixed subject of the kabuki repertory by the 1780s, and the supernatural confrontation between the deceased monk and the princess he had loved in life offered designers a chance to combine erotic charge with grotesque iconography. Shunsho composes the two figures in confrontational opposition, the skeletal Danjuro V suspended in spectral pose against the elegantly costumed Hanshiro IV. As the founder of the Katsukawa school, Shunsho built his career on the principle that yakusha-e should preserve the individuality of named performers, and even within this supernatural subject he maintains the facial likenesses by which Edo audiences recognized each actor. The Ichikawa lineage's signature aragoto bravura style is encoded in Danjuro V's posture, while Hanshiro IV's reputation as a leading onnagata is conveyed through the controlled refinement of his figure. The Art Institute's sheet preserves a major example of how the Katsukawa school used Edo ukiyo-e to document both the stagecraft and the theatrical mythology of late-eighteenth-century kabuki.