Utagawa Kuniyoshi
Japanese (1798 - 1861) Primary

Right Sheet of a Diptych, Bandô Shûka I as Yamanaya Urasato (山名屋 浦里) in the Play Akegarasu Hana no Nureginu (明烏花濡衣)

Edo
1851

Sheet
14 1/4 x 9 3/8 in. (36.195 x 23.813 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.
• diptychs - Refers to works comprising pairs of panels hinged together. They were used by the ancient Romans for writing tablets, often having images on the outer surfaces. In Medieval and later times, they were used primarily to support images for altarpieces and other purposes, most often composed of carved ivory or of painted wood panels, with the primary images on the interior surfaces.
• 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
• oban - Japanese prints of a standard size about 15 3/4 by 10 1/2 inches.
• 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
• 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.