Ichikawa Danjūrō V as a Skeleton, Spirit of the Renegade Monk Seigen, and Iwai Hanshirō IV as the Cherry Princess, in “Flower of Edo: An Ichikawa Saga” (Edo no Hana Mimasu Soga)

Art Institute of Chicago

Ichikawa Danjūrō V as a Skeleton, Spirit of the Renegade Monk Seigen, and Iwai Hanshirō IV as the Cherry Princess, in “Flower of Edo: An Ichikawa Saga” (Edo no Hana Mimasu Soga)

Katsukawa Shunsho 勝川 春章 (Japanese, 1726-1792)

Date
c.1783
Medium
Color woodblock print; hosoban diptych
Culture
Japan
Department
Arts of Asia
Institution
Art Institute of Chicago

As told on stage in the play Edo no Hana Mimasu Soga (Flower of Edo: An Ichikawa Saga), the tragic love affair of the monk Seigen and the Cherry Princess Sakura-hime ends with him being driven from his temple for breaking his vows of celibacy. He later dies alone and impoverished and then haunts the princess; in this print, his ghost is shown as a skeleton drawing close to a cowering woman. When this scene was performed, the actor playing the ghost wore a black costume with bones painted on it. Here, the skeleton bears the crest of the actor on his arm, helping to identify the performance as one held at the Nakamura Theater in Edo (now Tokyo) in 1783.

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