Actor Ichikawa Danjūrō IX as Suhama Sōzu in Jayanagi, from the series The Eighteen Great Kabuki Plays (Kabuki Jūhachi-ban)
歌舞伎十八番 蛇柳
- Date:
- 1896
- Medium:
- Woodblock print (nishiki-e); ink and color on paper
- Source:
- Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
歌舞伎十八番 蛇柳
Ichikawa Danjūrō IX appears here in the role of the monk Suhama Sōzu in Jayanagi ('The Serpent Willow'), one of the eighteen canonical plays of the Ichikawa family repertoire codified in 1832 by Ichikawa Danjūrō VII. Jayanagi dramatises an episode of supernatural demon-subjugation in which the monk Suhama Sōzu confronts a willow-tree spirit whose serpentine animation has been threatening the local villagers - a typical aragoto premise drawing on the long tradition of Buddhist subjugation of malevolent local spirits that supplied the kabuki repertoire with a recurring set of warrior-monk vehicles. The role of Suhama Sōzu requires the controlled bravura of a Buddhist exorcist confronting a supernatural antagonist - a sustained portrait of religious authority displayed through stance, mie (frozen pose), and chanted ritual incantation. Kiyosada's 1896 design preserves the costuming of the role as Danjūrō IX performed it in the closing decade of the nineteenth century, with the monk's robes, the symbolic prayer-beads, and the demon-vanquishing posture rendered in the Torii school's traditional bold contour vocabulary. The print belongs to the Kabuki Jūhachi-ban series produced jointly with Kiyosada's son Torii Kiyotada VII, and is held by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston as part of its complete extant set of the series. Jayanagi is among the rarer of the Kabuki Eighteen plays in the modern repertoire, and Kiyosada's print preserves a rare late-Meiji pictorial record of its staging.
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 Suhama Sōzu in Jayanagi, from the series The Eighteen Great Kabuki Plays (Kabuki Jūhachi-ban) (歌舞伎十八番 蛇柳) was created by Torii Kiyosada (鳥居清貞) in 1896.