Osan

Osan is a print by Utagawa Kunisada depicting the tragic heroine of Chikamatsu Monzaemon's domestic drama Daikyoji mukashi-goyomi (The Almanac of Love) and the various kabuki adaptations of her story, in which she is the wife wrongfully drawn into adultery and forced into flight with the apprentice Mohei. Within Edo ukiyo-e the figure of Osan, like other Chikamatsu heroines, became a recurring subject for both yakusha-e (when a particular onnagata gave a celebrated performance) and bijin-ga (when artists wished to evoke her without naming a specific actor). Kunisada gives the figure the alert glance, refined facial features, and patterned robe of his mature manner, with hair arranged in the style appropriate to a respectable townsman's wife. The composition concentrates on the half-length figure to maximise emotional immediacy, allowing the viewer to read the character's restrained grief in the angle of head, eyes, and mouth. Whether or not the sheet identifies a particular kabuki production, it draws on the same theatrical world Kunisada documented across his enormous output. The impression is held in the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria collection and indexed on ukiyo-e.org. Source: ukiyo-e.org / Art Gallery of Greater Victoria (https://ukiyo-e.org/image/aggv/escn4676).