Utagawa Kuniyoshi
Japanese (1798 - 1861) Primary

Scenes from a Kabuki Play on the Theme of Revenge from the Series Denka chaya adauchi 殿下茶屋仇討 (Vengeance at Denka Tea House)

Edo
1854

Sheet
10 1/8 x 14 5/8 in. (25.718 x 37.148 cm)

This object has the following keywords:

• actors - Persons who use movement, gesture, facial expressions, speaking, and intonation to create a fictional character for the stage, motion pictures, or television.
• edged weapons - Weapons featuring a sharp edge or point for cutting, thrusting, clubbing, slashing, or various combinations thereof.
• Edo - Refers to the period and style that developed from the unification of Japan in 1600 until the end of the shogunal dynasty in 1868. During this period, economic expansion encouraged the rise of an educated merchant class who created their own forms of literature and theater as well as new schools of painting and woodblock printing. A wide diversity of pictorial subjects and styles developed during this period and many 19th century Western artists were influenced by them.
• Kabuki
• plays - Dramatic or theatrical performances staged by actors before an audience; acted representations of an action or story.
• Ukiyo-e - Distinctive genre in painting and other media, but most prominently in woodblock printing. It arose in the Edo period (1600-1868) and built up a broad popular market among the middle classes. Subject matter typically focused on brothel districts and kabuki theatres, with formats ranging from single sheet prints to book illustrations. Generally, the style is characterized by a mixture of the realistic narrative of the Kamakura period and the mature decorative style of the Momoyama and Edo periods. Distinctive styles and specialties in subject matter were developed by different schools throughout the period.
• Utagawa, Kuniyoshi, 1798-1861 - Sources:
  - Robinson, B. W.: Kuniyoshi, 1961
  - Suzuki, J. Kuniyoshi, 1985:
  - Forrer, M. Drawings by Utagawa Kuniyoshi from the collection of the National Museum of Ethnology, Leiden, 1988:
  - Info. from 678 field, converted 2012-10-25
  - LC database, June 12, 2020
• vengeance - The act or condition of inflicting retributive injury or punishment in retaliation for an injury or offense.
• warriors - Those trained for or engaged in the physical combat of warfare, especially close hand-to-hand combat, and designated for or sanctioned in that function by the society or group for which they fight, irrespective of membership in an army. Includes men of the warrior age grade in certain pre-literate societies, as for instance, among some East African pastoral societies. For members of an army, whether directly involved in combat or in other duties, use "soldiers."
• woodcuts - Prints made using the process of woodcut, which is a relief process in which the design is cut into and printed from the plank side of a wood block; distinct from "wood engraving (process)," which is a relief process using the grain end of a wood block.
• yoko-e - In Japanese printing, a sheet of paper that is in landscape format (height is smaller than width).