Matsumoto Koshiro as Umeo

Umeomaru is one of three sworn brothers in "Sugawara Denju Tenarai Kagami," the role linked to the plum-blossom motif that gives him his name and most familiar from the "Kuruma-biki" (carriage-pulling) scene. The character belongs to the aragoto tradition of bombastic heroic acting and demands the red and black kumadori facial makeup, exaggerated eye lines, and a costume covered in plum patterns. Shunsen's actor portraits isolate the head and shoulders in a tightly cropped bust against a plain background, so that the keyblock's drawn line and the multiple color blocks of the costume bear the full weight of expression. Within the shin-hanga production system at Watanabe Shozaburo's workshop, the carvers and printers translated Shunsen's nihonga-trained brushwork into the layered polychrome image, with bokashi gradation and karazuri embossing reserved for specific costume details. The work participates in the okubi-e tradition reaching back through Toyokuni and Sharaku to the Edo period, here updated with the documentary specificity of named-actor-in-named-role that defined twentieth-century yakusha-e.