Morning of a Nô Performance (Onô haiken asaban), from the series Scenes of Famous Places along the Tôkaidô Road (Tôkaidô meisho fûkei), also known as the Processional Tôkaidô (Gyôretsu Tôkaidô), here called Tôkaidô meisho no uchi
- Medium:
- Woodblock print
- Source:
- Museum of Fine Arts Boston
- Image courtesy of
- Museum of Fine Arts Boston
Description
This impression of the Nō performance morning design from Kyosai's Tōkaidō series emphasizes the intersection of theatrical culture and road travel that characterized elite movement along the highway during the Edo period. Nō theater, with its masked performers, choral accompaniment, and restrained choreography, presented Kyosai with a pictorial subject quite unlike the bustling scenes of ferries, mountain passes, and marketplaces that appear elsewhere in the meisho-e tradition. His version likely focuses on the formal arrangements of performance — masked actors in layered kosode and kariginu robes, the pine backdrop of the Nō stage — rendered with the draftsmanship he developed through Kanō school training. The oban format of the series allows enough surface area to convey the spatial depth of the stage environment as well as the surrounding station setting.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Morning of a Nô Performance (Onô haiken asaban), from the series Scenes of Famous Places along the Tôkaidô Road (Tôkaidô meisho fûkei), also known as the Processional Tôkaidô (Gyôretsu Tôkaidô), here called Tôkaidô meisho no uchi was created by Kawanabe Kyosai (河鍋暁斎).
Yes — Morning of a Nô Performance (Onô haiken asaban), from the series Scenes of Famous Places along the Tôkaidô Road (Tôkaidô meisho fûkei), also known as the Processional Tôkaidô (Gyôretsu Tôkaidô), here called Tôkaidô meisho no uchi is part of the Scenes of Famous Places along the Tôkaidô Road series by Kawanabe Kyosai.
Morning of a Nô Performance (Onô haiken asaban), from the series Scenes of Famous Places along the Tôkaidô Road (Tôkaidô meisho fûkei), also known as the Processional Tôkaidô (Gyôretsu Tôkaidô), here called Tôkaidô meisho no uchi depicts transportation, tōkaidō, and travel scenes.