The Actor Segawa Kikunojo II as the Nun Seigen

The Actor Segawa Kikunojo II as the Nun Seigen, dated 1758 by the Art Institute of Chicago, is a relatively rare instance of Suzuki Harunobu turning to the kabuki stage rather than to the broader idiom of Edo bijin-ga. Segawa Kikunojo II was one of the leading onnagata (specialists in female roles) of the mid-eighteenth century, celebrated for the elegance with which he embodied women on stage. The nun Seigen comes from a popular kabuki narrative in which the cloistered woman, having fallen in love with the boy Sakuramaru, abandons her vocation and pursues him to her own destruction. Harunobu shows Kikunojo II in the role's dark robes, the props and posture identifying the character to viewers familiar with the play. The print belongs to the actor-print (yakusha-e) tradition that ran in parallel to bijin-ga in Edo ukiyo-e, although Suzuki Harunobu adopts the same supple line and refined proportions he used for his women, treating the actor's professional femininity as continuous with the bijin-ga lineage he was simultaneously redefining. The sheet thus stands at the meeting point of two ukiyo-e genres and shows Harunobu's ability to apply his nishiki-e aesthetic - careful color separation, harmonious palette, soft gestural line - to the theatrical celebrity culture of Edo. Source: Art Institute of Chicago, no. 23004.