The Actor Nakamura Denkuro I

Printed entirely in black ink without hand-coloring, this hosoban sumizuri-e from around 1700 depicts Nakamura Denkuro I, a leading actor of the late Genroku era and one of the stars whose performances helped establish kabuki as Edo's defining popular entertainment. Without the orange tan washes that ornament many of Kiyonobu's surviving prints, the composition relies entirely on line - the heavy, gourd-shaped contours of the legs and the rope-like inflections in the robes that Torii-school manuals would later codify as hyotan-ashi and mimizu-gaki. The result is a study in raw graphic energy, the actor's body bulging within his costume as if barely contained by it. Sumizuri-e impressions were the standard format for Edo prints in this period before colored printing techniques became economical, and surviving examples are rare. The Art Institute of Chicago preserves this sheet within its collection of early Torii-school yakusha-e.