Actor Ichikawa Danjūrō IX as Sōma Masakado in Kamahige, from the series The Eighteen Great Kabuki Plays (Kabuki Jūhachi-ban)
歌舞伎十八番 鎌髭
- Date:
- 1895
- Medium:
- Woodblock print (nishiki-e); ink and color on paper
- Source:
- Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
歌舞伎十八番 鎌髭
Sōma Masakado, the tenth-century rebel warrior of eastern Japan whose unsuccessful uprising against the Heian court turned him in later legend into a vengeful spirit, is shown by Torii Kiyosada in the form played by Ichikawa Danjūrō IX in Kamahige ('Sickle Beard'), one of the canonical eighteen plays of the Ichikawa family repertoire. Masakado's historical revolt of 939-940 - the first serious challenge to Heian authority from the warrior class - became the basis of an extensive medieval and early-modern legendary literature, with the warrior's posthumous transformation into a vengeful demon supplying Edo kabuki with a recurring supernatural antagonist. In Kamahige the figure is rendered through the broad aragoto vocabulary that defined the Ichikawa house style: an exaggerated muscular pose, a wildly elaborated false beard (the kamahige or 'sickle beard' of the title), and the angular stance work and oversized props characteristic of bravura male-role staging. The play had been codified within the Kabuki Jūhachi-ban by Ichikawa Danjūrō VII in 1832 and was performed across the nineteenth century as part of the canonical Ichikawa repertoire. Kiyosada's late-Meiji design - issued in 1895 as part of the eighteen-print Kabuki Jūhachi-ban series jointly produced with his son Torii Kiyotada VII - preserves the costume and staging of the role as Danjūrō IX performed it at the Kabuki-za and other late nineteenth-century Tokyo theatres. The print is held by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
歌舞伎十八番 毛抜
1895
Woodblock print (nishiki-e); ink and color on paper
大江戸しばゐねんぢうぎやうじ 猿若狂言
1897
Woodblock print (nishiki-e); ink and color on paper
歌舞伎十八番 目録
1895
Woodblock print (nishiki-e); ink and color on paper
歌舞伎十八番 勧進帳
1896
Woodblock print (nishiki-e); ink and color on paper
Actor Ichikawa Danjūrō IX as Sōma Masakado in Kamahige, from the series The Eighteen Great Kabuki Plays (Kabuki Jūhachi-ban) (歌舞伎十八番 鎌髭) was created by Torii Kiyosada (鳥居清貞) in 1895.