The Actor Ichikawa Danjuro V as Yanone Goro in the Play Kuruwa-gayoi Komachi Soga, Performed at the Nakamura Theater in the Fifth Month, 1781

This Katsukawa Shunsho print captures Ichikawa Danjuro V in one of the most iconic of all kabuki roles, Soga Goro performing the arrow-sharpening (yanone) scene, here drawn from Kuruwa-gayoi Komachi Soga, performed at the Nakamura Theater in the fifth month of 1781. The Yanone is an aragoto, or bravura, role belonging to the Ichikawa family lineage, originated by Danjuro II and inherited as a defining piece by every Danjuro of the line. Danjuro V was the leading aragoto actor of his generation in Edo, and Shunsho was the principal designer who recorded his performances. In this hosoban yakusha-e the figure stands in a powerful pose, the exaggerated kimono pattern and heroic facial paint of aragoto fully visible. Shunsho's Katsukawa school manner preserves the recognisable physiognomy of Danjuro V even within the conventions of the role, a balance between portraiture and theatrical type that defined Edo ukiyo-e of the An'ei and Tenmei years. The print is held in the Clarence Buckingham Collection at the Art Institute of Chicago. It documents not only a specific performance but also the continuing centrality of the Soga revenge cycle and the Ichikawa aragoto repertoire to Edo's theatre culture, and it stands among Shunsho's most directly heroic depictions of the leading Ichikawa player.