Second Yamashita Kinsaku as a Woman Standing in a Room
ca. 1774
Medium
Woodblock print; ink and color on paper
Dimensions
12 x 5 3/4 in. (30.5 x 14.6 cm)
Classification
Prints
Culture & Period
Japan · Edo period (1615–1868)
Department
Asian Art
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Purchase, Joseph Pulitzer Bequest, 1918
Accession Number
JP288
Tags
Art Historical Context
In the vibrant world of Edo-period Japan (1615–8), Katsukawa Shunkō's *Second Yamashita Kinsaku as Woman Standing in a Room (ca. 1774) captures the theatrical glamour of Kabuki. This woodblock print features Yamashita Kinsaku II, celebrated male actor known as an *onnagata*—a specialist in female roles, a tradition born when women were banned from the stage in the early 17th century.unkō, a master of the ukiyo-e ("pictures of the floating world") school and pupil of the famed Shunshō, excels in yakusha-e, or actor portraits, that immortalized stars like Kinsaku in dynamic poses. Printed in in...
About the Artist
Katsukawa Shunkō
Katsukawa Shunkō I (1743–1812) was a Japanese ukiyo-e artist who pioneered the ōkubi-e (large-head) portrait format in kabuki actor prints and served as possibly the first student of Katsukawa Shunshō, the founder of the influential Katsukawa school. Born in 1743, Shunkō spent his entire life in Edo (modern Tokyo), working as both a painter and ukiyo-e printmaker specializing in yakusha-e (actor p...