Eight Scenes of Kanazawa (Kanazawa hakkei): The Dance of Asahina and Umejumaru (Asaina Umejumaru mai no dan)
c. 1707
Medium
Hand-colored woodblock print; o-oban yoko-e, tan-e
Dimensions
31.8 × 54.1 cm (12 9/16 × 21 5/16 in.)
Classification
woodblock print
Department
Arts of Asia
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
82554
Art Historical Context
This striking hand-colored woodblock print by Torii Kiyonobu I captures a lively kabuki dance scene from the series *Eight Scenes of Kanazawa*. Created around 1707, the work depicts the dramatic confrontation between the characters Asahina and Umejumaru in a performance that would have thrilled Edo-period audiences. As the founder of the Torii school, Kiyonobu specialized in *yakusha-e*, or actor prints, using bold, sweeping lines to convey the energy and expressive poses of the stage. The print’s large horizontal *o-oban yoko-e* format and *tan-e* technique—hand-applied pigments featuring th...
About the Artist
Torii Kiyonobu I · 1664–1729
Torii Kiyonobu I (1664–1729), born Shōbei in Osaka, was the second son of Torii Kiyomoto, a prominent kabuki actor specializing in onnagata roles and a painter of theater signboards. He studied painting under his father as well as Yoshida Hanbei and Hishikawa Moronobu, the pioneering ukiyo-e master whose figure styles profoundly shaped his early work. In 1687, at age twenty-four, Kiyonobu accompan...