The Actor Takii Hannosuke as an effeminate youth

Takii Hannosuke, an Edo actor specializing in young male and effeminate youth roles, is depicted here in a hand-colored vertical oban tan-e of around 1707. The larger sheet size allowed Kiyonobu to elaborate the costume in greater detail than the standard hosoban format permitted, and the artist takes advantage of the available space to develop a more graceful, less stridently muscular figure than his aragoto actor portraits. The orange tan and yellow pigments applied to the kimono distinguish the elaborate textile patterns that signaled the wakashu (adolescent youth) role type to theatre audiences. Wakashu performers occupied a particular cultural and erotic position in Edo theatre culture, and Kiyonobu's prints of these roles were collected by male admirers of both the actor and the youthful figure he embodied. From the Art Institute of Chicago.