Ichikawa Shôchô II as the beauty Matsutsuta no Oman

Bijin-ga via yakusha-e: portrait of the onnagata Ichikawa Shōchō II in the role of Matsutsuta no Oman, a kabuki beauty role. Onnagata performance — the male actor specializing in female roles — is a long-standing tradition within kabuki, and a sheet of this kind operates simultaneously as actor portrait and as bijin-ga: the conventions of feminine elegance (the angled tilt of the head, the precisely set mouth, the studied placement of fingers near the collar of the kimono) are observed both as Oman's character and as the onnagata's professional achievement. Yamamura's drawing reads the painted shironuri (white face makeup), the eyebrow stroke, and the line of the nape with attention to the constructed nature of the stage femininity. Produced through shin-hanga collaboration on hōsho washi using nishiki-e polychrome blocks and bokashi gradients, the print belongs to a smaller subset of Yamamura's actor portraits that document onnagata roles, alongside the larger body of his work depicting tachiyaku male roles.