Ukiyo-e Prints

浮世絵版画

formerly Port Townsend, Washington

now Kansas City, Missouri

Utagawa Toyokuni III

三代歌川豊国

1786-1865

Title: Mii Banshō

三井の晩鐘

Series Title: Omi hakkei no uchi

近江八景之図

Actor: Ichikawa Danzō VI

市川団蔵

Role: Kuronushi

黒主

Publisher: Hayashiya Shojirō?

Carver: Yokegawa Takejirō

横川竹治郎

Carver's Seal: hori Take (彫竹 or ほりたけ)

Date: 1852, 6th Month

Signature: Toyokuni ga

Size: 14 1/4" x 9 5/8"

 There is another copy of this

print in the

National Museum of Japanese History.

 Several areas are burnished like the black of his sleeve and Sekibei's hair. The darker areas of the landscape are flecked with mica. More subtle than any of these and impossible to reproduce in any photo or scan is the clear, but burnished interlinked toshidama* in the title cartouche. (You would have to handle this print to see them for yourself.)

*The toshidama or otoshidama is the crest used by Kunisada/Toyokuni III and many other Utagawa artists. Kunisada used many variations of this as can be seen in the signature cartouche.

SOLD!

THANKS D!

Otomo no Kuronushi

大伴黒主

The historical Otomo no Kuronushi was a ninth century poet whose family's stronghold was Otsu in Omi province which twice served briefly as the Imperial residence in the 7th century. With the advent of Buddhism and the emplacement of the Emperor in a more permanent setting in Nara and later Kyōto the power of the Otomo clan diminished. With the rest of the now-provincial clans, the Otomo, whose prestige and might preceded the Confucian and Buddhist restructuring of government, were seen as a potential source of unrest and sedition. More than that, as the brilliant urban Heian culture flowered at Kyōto, the provincial nobility came to be seen as illiterate bumpkins incapable of refinement but fit enough to supply the rice tax levy which enriched their betters at the Court.*

*The information shown above was provided to us by A.K.  Much of it is quoted without the marks because I have edited and rearranged some of the wording. My apologies to K. and hope he will appreciate my efforts. I certainly do his with enormous gratitude.

Laura Resplica Rodd and Mary Catherine Henkenius in their Princeton Library of Asian Translations (1984, p. 416) note possible dates for Kuronushi as "830?-923?". They also point out  that he was "One of the 'six poetic geniuses.' Member of a provincial family descended from the imperial line."

ひいでて

こひしきときは

はつかりの

なきてわたると

ひとしるらめや

Omoiidete

koishiki toki wa

hatsukari no

nakite wataru to

hito shirurame ya

Lost in memories of our

times of love: the first wild goose

departs, lamenting and I

wander lamenting too:

Do you even remember?

This is from the Kokinshu #735 and is translated by A.K., our contributor.

近江のや

鏡の山を

たてれば

かねてぞ見ゆる

君が千年は

Omi no ya

kagami no yama o

tatetareba

kanete zo miyuru

kimi ga chitose wa

High it rises in Omi,

Mirror Mountain,

stands high established

reflecting the thousand years

our lord will reign

Kokinshu #1086 transalted by A.K.

Carver's Seal:

hori Take

representing

Yokegawa Takejiro

Date Seals:

1852, 6th Month

Publisher's Seal:

Hayashi-ya Shojiro?

Trimmed on the right.

* We are grateful to A.K. for contributing this tale. He went on to say that whether this is simply based on malicious court gossip or not it is enshrined in the Noh play Soshiarai Komachi (草紙洗小町) and has blackened Kuronushi's reputation ever since. Logic tells us that someone out there or perhaps a whole faction was intent on dissing the man. Anyone and everyone competently literate at the time when this story would have taken place would have known that that was not an old poem.**

**Donald Keene in his Seeds in the Heart: Japanese Literature from Earliest Times to the Late Sixteenth Century (p. 245) notes that the compilers of the Kokinshū wrote "...one of the earliest and best known documents of Japanese poetic criticism." They stated that none of the Six Immortal Poets of the ninth century could rival the poets of the Man'yōshū. Ono no Komachi's poetry was said to be weak "...like an ailing woman wearing cosmetics." But if that weren't bad enough Kuronishi took his own pounding: "His style is extremely crude, as though a peasant were resting in front of a flowering tree." And that wasn't even their harshest appraisal.

While Leitner makes a point of describing Sekibei's costume it does not jive with those of the print featured on this page or that of the detail of the image shown immediately above which is also by Toyokuni III but portraying Ichikawa Ebizô V here. Perhaps it is poetic license or perhaps I have not seen the exact costume to which Leitner is referring. He states that Ono no Komachi "...requests passage through the barrier, but is refused by the barrier guard Sekibei, dressed in a bold, green and white, checkerboard-patterned (ichimatsu moyō) padded kimono, with a brown turban-like cap on his head."* Clearly Leitner must be noting the oddly designed costumes seen on this page which seem to be unique to this particular character.

* The New Kabuki Encyclopedia: A Revised Adaptation of the Kabuki Jiten, by Samuel Leiter, Greenwood Press, 1997, p. 565.

THE FINEST KABUKI SITE ON THE INTERNET!

For additional information about

and images  by various artists of

Ichikawa Danzō VI

link to the web site below.

DANZŌ VI