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Gain access to this incredible resource through either a monthly or a yearly subscription and search the entire collection from your desktop, compare multiple images side by side and zoom into the minute details of the images. Visit www.davidrumsey.com/amica for more information on the collection, click on the link below the revolving thumbnail to the right, or email us at amica@luna-img.com . Creator Name: Ippitsusai Buncho Creator Nationality: Asian; Far East Asian; Japanese Creator Role: Artist Creator Dates/Places: Japanese; fl. c.1755-1790 Asia,East Asia,Japan Creator Active Place: Asia,East Asia,Japan Creator Name-CRT: Ippitsusai Buncho Title: The actor Arashi Otohachi I as Numataro, the retainer of Utou Yasukata, in part two of the play Kogane no Hana Gaijin Aramtlsha (Gold Flowers: The Triumphal Return of Fierce Warriors) Title Type: preferred View: Full View Creation Start Date: 1766 Creation End Date: 1766 Creation Date: Performed at the Nakamura Theater from the first day of the eleventh month, 1766 Creation Place: Asia,East Asia,Japan Object Type: Prints Classification Term: Woodblock Materials and Techniques: Woodblock print. Dimensions: Hosoban; 32.0 x 15.4 cm Inscriptions: SIGNATURE: Ippitsusai Buncho gaARTIST'S SEAL: Mori uji AMICA Contributor: The Art Institute of Chicago Owner Location: Chicago, Illinois, USA ID Number: 1928.992 Credit Line: The Art Institute of Chicago, The Clarence Buckingham Collection Rights: http://www.artic.edu/aic/rights/main.rights.html Context: Otohachi I, in the role of the retainer Numataro, stands beneath the snow-laden branches of a willow, wearing a travelling cloak and broad straw hat, and dangling a pair of frogfish (anko) on a piece of string. Clumps of narcissus bloom at the foot of the tree. Knowing that his master, Yasukata, desperately needs three hundred ryo (large gold coins), Numataro is willing to risk eternal damnation to obtain the money. For legend had it that anyone striking the bell of Mukenzan Kannon Temple at Sayo no Nakayama in Totomi Province would receive untold riches in this life but would be cast to the nethermost hell in the next. By a peculiar theatrical convention it is the two frogfish rather than the Mukenzan Temple bell which Numataro strikes with a knife. He is shown doing so in the top left-hand corner of an illustration from one of the actor critiques (yakusha hyobanki) relating to the performance (see 'The Actor's Image' catalogue, fig. 1.1, p.51). Later Numataro shakes from a tree a hoard of money that had been cached there by thieving monkeys.Buncho's few prints of Otohachi I in various roles always show him with the same odd facial features: small, sunken eyes, turned-down mouth, bulbous nose, mis-matched eyebrows, and tufts of hair at the temples. Doubtless his appearance helped to make him the favorite actor of buffoon roles (doke yaku) until his death in 1769. Here the gaping frogfish seem to accentuate the actor's ill-shaped features in a manner at once comic and poignant: the artists' new interest in depicting an actor's actual likeness (nigao-e) extended to the bad points as well as the good.The Chicago impression of the print is somewhat faded: another specimen in the collection of the Tsubouchi Memorial Theater Museum, Waseda University, Tokyo, shows a bottle green cloak and stronger red and purple on the kimono underneath. At present no other prints by Buncho relating to this performance are known. AMICA ID: AIC_.1928.992 AMICA Library Year: 1998 Media Metadata Rights: Copyright The Art Institute of Chicago, 1998 AMICA PUBLIC RIGHTS: a) Access to the materials is granted for personal and non-commercial use. b) A full educational license for non-commercial use is available from Cartography Associates at www.davidrumsey.com/amica/institution_subscribe.html c) Licensed users may continue their examination of additional materials provided by Cartography Associates, and d) commercial rights are available from the rights holder. Home
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