Scene from the Play "Keisei Kaneni Sakura"
Kiyohiro, whose works appeared between the a740s and 1760s, worked primarily in two- and three-color prints (benizuri-s). He eschewed the earlier technique of brushing color onto prints and instead applied rose-red and green, the sof colors that characterize his work.
The play depicted in this print adapts the tragic story of the eighth-century Chinese Emperor Hsuan-tsung and his concubine, Yang Kyei-fei. Performed at the Morita Theater during the New Year season in 1756, it featured the actors Ichikawa Masuzō and Azuma Tōzō, who were frequently cast as hunband and wife. Although the Chinese origin of the subject is conveyed in the loose, Chinese-style garments and jeweled caps, there is little else Chinese about this print. By setting his actors under a cherry tree and wrapping them in robes marked with large, typically Japanese actors' crests and linked hexagons and double-petal cherry motifs, Kiyohiro has completely transformed the subject, conveying the tender mood in line and color.
The play depicted in this print adapts the tragic story of the eighth-century Chinese Emperor Hsuan-tsung and his concubine, Yang Kyei-fei. Performed at the Morita Theater during the New Year season in 1756, it featured the actors Ichikawa Masuzō and Azuma Tōzō, who were frequently cast as hunband and wife. Although the Chinese origin of the subject is conveyed in the loose, Chinese-style garments and jeweled caps, there is little else Chinese about this print. By setting his actors under a cherry tree and wrapping them in robes marked with large, typically Japanese actors' crests and linked hexagons and double-petal cherry motifs, Kiyohiro has completely transformed the subject, conveying the tender mood in line and color.
Artwork Details
- Title: Scene from the Play "Keisei Kaneni Sakura"
- Artist: Torii Kiyohiro (Japanese, active ca. 1737–76)
- Period: Edo period (1615–1868)
- Date: 1756
- Culture: Japan
- Medium: Woodblock print; ink and color on paper
- Dimensions: 12 1/4 x 5 3/4 in. (31.1 x 14.6 cm)
- Classification: Prints
- Credit Line: Harris Brisbane Dick Fund and Rogers Fund, 1949
- Object Number: JP3090
- Curatorial Department: Asian Art
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