The Actor Ichikawa Danjuro V as a Stone Image of Fudo Myoo in the Play Kitekaeru Nishiki no Wakayaka, Performed at the Nakamura Theater in the Eleventh Month, 1780

Katsukawa Shunsho shows Ichikawa Danjuro V transformed into a stone image of the wrathful Buddhist deity Fudo Myoo in Kitekaeru Nishiki no Wakayaka, performed at the Nakamura Theater in the eleventh month of 1780. The Ichikawa line had a deep ritual connection to Fudo Myoo, and Danjuro V was famous for staging the moment when the actor, draped in robes that mimicked the deity's flame mandorla and gripping the sword and noose, held a long mie pose to suggest he had become the icon itself. Shunsho captures the static, hieratic quality of that moment, the body straight, the eyes fixed, the flame nimbus implied by a halo-like screen behind the figure. The print, held by the Art Institute of Chicago, is a hosoban yakusha-e in the mature Katsukawa school manner that Shunsho perfected: restrained palette, decisive contour, and a likeness specific enough to identify the actor under the heavy stage make-up. Within Edo ukiyo-e the Katsukawa school's contribution was precisely this fusion of devotional iconography and recognizable celebrity, treating a great aragoto actor as both performer and a kind of living icon. The eleventh-month kaomise opening at which the play premiered was the season's most prestigious slot, when the three licensed Edo theaters unveiled the casts for the coming year, and Shunsho's print would have circulated widely as both publicity for the season and souvenir of an admired performance.