(The year of birth and death unknown) This picture illustrated Oshizu, Kikunozyo Segawa III as a wife of Bunzo Tanabe. Bunzo helped Ishii Bother’s seeking revenge and bear with the poor. Oshizu also put up with the difficult circumstances. Because she was sick, she put hachimaki headband around her head. The picture illustrates her loneliness well. In addition to the illustration, Sharaku fully depicts the quality of the artist as actor of Kikunozyo III, this is claimed as his best or the next masterpiece. We are just impressed Sharaku’s character depiction such as rounded face and implicated possessed quality of his art. Especially this work shows incredible the beauty of color toning: this is called Sharaku likes this tone. For instance, underwear with two colors, crimson and green, pull the entire color tone together and shows his technique implying the gorgeousness of Kikunozyo as an actor disguising female. Kikunozyo Segawa III is famous actor playing female During 1781-1801 (Tenmei and Kansei) and became a master of the Theater. He was born as the second son of Shichijuro Ichikawa, a choreographer in Osaka, and was adopted Kikunozyo II. His first name was Tomizaburo Ichikawa, later he was adopted changed the name to Tomizaburo Ichikawa. He took over the clan in November of 1774 (Anei 3) . Year by year, he built a reputation and became the top actor who played female role in Edo. People acclaimed him as “Hamamuraya daimyoujin”. Again he changed his name to “Rokou”, his haiku pen name, in 1801 (Kyowa 1), later again to “Senjyo” in 1807 (Bunka 4). He died in December of 1810 (Bunka 4) at age of 60

 

 

Sharaku Toshusai(birth and death dates unknown)

Birth and death dates unknown.

In 1794 (Kansei 6), Sharaku came into sudden prominence, produced more than 140 ukiyo-e paintings during the mere ten months of his activity as an ukiyo-e painter, and then disappeared forever. For his debut work, he used the large, o-ban printing size, and expensive biotitic background printing, which was unusual. Juzaburo Tsutaya, a publisher, enthusiastically promoted Sharaku after Utamaro had left him. Meanwhile, the printing size was getting smaller. One of the major reasons for this was that Sharaku’s way of drawing actors as they were, regardless of their popularity, was not accepted by people of the era. However, each of his portraits is full of energetic impression and gives a positive impact. Because of this, he also received high acclaim from abroad.

 

Selections of Sharaku Toshusai

Sharaku Toshusai(birth and death dates unknown)

One of the reasons why Sharaku’s works are precious is that so few exist. Unfortunately, his art was recognized abroad before it gained popularity in Japan. While the Japanese were blind to his talent, many of the works ended up abroad and were praised. Some of the works were brought back to Japan as part of the Matsukata Collection in 1943 (Showa 18), which increased the number of his popular works in Japan. These forty works were reissued from the collection. Each of them represents one of Sharaku’s great masterpieces.