The Actor Ichikawa Danjuro V as the Renegade Monk Wantetsu of Okami-dani in the Play Date Nishiki Tsui no Yumitori, Performed at the Morita Theater in the Eleventh Month, 1778

Katsukawa Shunsho here portrays Ichikawa Danjuro V as the renegade monk Wantetsu of Okami-dani in the play Date Nishiki Tsui no Yumitori, performed at the Morita Theater during the kaomise season of the eleventh month, 1778. The Art Institute of Chicago impression shows Danjuro V in a fearsome aragoto guise that the Ichikawa line had long made its own: heavy robes, exaggerated bulk through padding, and the unkempt locks suited to a fallen cleric turned outlaw. Shunsho was the principal yakusha-e artist of Danjuro V's career, and the Katsukawa school's documentary record of this great actor's roles is among the most complete for any Edo kabuki performer. The kaomise (face-showing) performance announced the company a theater would carry through the coming year, and prints from these productions were eagerly sought as the season's first souvenirs. Within Edo ukiyo-e, Shunsho's portraits of villainous and supernatural roles helped break with the more decorative Torii school's tradition by emphasizing the brooding intensity actors brought to such parts. The carefully recorded play title, date, and theater attribution at the print's edge are themselves part of the Katsukawa school's claim to be making documentary art rather than mere fan ephemera.