The Actor Onoe Fujaku III as Kobayakawa Takakage

This dramatic bust portrait of Onoe Fujaku III (1793–1831) captures the Osaka-based actor as a samurai garbed in a brilliant purple surcoat with paulownia crests, covering armor that has a breastplate in the form of a demon mask with piercing eyes. Fujaku is shown in a role based on a real-life daimyo Kobayakawa Takakage (1533–1597), who commanded troops for the Mori clan, into which he was born and belonged to before being adopted into the Kobayakawa clan. He helped both clans expand their territory in western Honshū through brilliant military campaigns, and eventually was able to exert even more power after becoming an ally of the great warlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Theater fans enjoyed the clever and playful ways in which Kabuki playwrights rewrote history.

Though the role is named on the print, we have yet to find records of play represented. Throughout his career, Fujaku specialized in tachiyaku, or “upright and just” male lead roles. By the 1820s, from when this print dates, he acquired special renown for acting in so-called “gentle and honest” (wajitsu) roles that combined the “gentle style” (wagoto) of acting required of romantic male characters and “honest style” (jitsugoto) used to refer roles presenting male characters who are dignified, mature, wise, and capable. Early on in his career, he performed in mostly in minor theaters (hama shibai) in Osaka, but in his later years, he often appeared at the prominent Ōnishi no Shibai. Fujaku used this stage name from the late 1810s to the first month of 1831.

There is often confusion over the identities of three different Osaka artists who used the art name “Shunshi,” though each used a different character for “shi,” and the artist here is not same Shunshi who created a number of portraits of Onoe Tamizō II (1799–1886), as previous specialists have suggested. Some sources say that this Seiyōsai Shunshi died in 1860, but this does not line up with the period of his artistic activity, which most records and surviving prints indicate was limited to the mid-Bunsei era (1818–29). Prints by this artist are exceedingly rare, and there are only three examples by Seiyōsai Shunshi’s in the compendious collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (see MFA 11.35233–5). Seiyōsai Shunshi was said to have studied under Shunkōsai Hokushū, and all of his known works are actor portraits. We can assume that, like many Osaka print artists, he was wealthy Kabuki fan who created print designs as an avocation, not profession.

Though unsigned, the poem—a 31 syllable kyōka (witty poem)—is assuredly by the actor himself. The actor likens himself to a swallow returning home to build a nest in the early summer; according to Japanese folklore, swallows are said to sing greetings (tsubame no aisatsu) when they migrate from and back to the north. Perhaps the actor is suggesting that for this season he is returning to one of his former homes at one of the small theaters (hama shibai) in Osaka where he established himself as an actor, rather than the larger Ōnishi no Shibai, where he was regularly performing in his final years—that is, until it was destroyed by fire in the second month of 1827. Or he might possibly be referring to a return trip from Nagoya, where he performed intermittently in the early 1820s (including during the third to sixth months of 1824). Future research might connect the print to a particular performance and more precise date. Fujaku’s posthumous Buddhist name (kaimyō) was Myōon’in 妙音院, which literally means “exquisite sound,” so we can assume he had a soft but elegant voice. The kyōka reads:

つはくろの　ことしも軒に　巣をかけて　
贔屓をねかふ　こへそはつかし

Tsubakuro no
kotoshi mo noki ni
su o kakete
hiiki o negau
koe zo hazukashi

Like a barn swallow,
again this year, building
its nests in the eaves,
we humbly lift our voices
to gather new admirers.
(Trans. John T. Carpenter)