The Actor Ichikawa Danjuro VIII

The motif of actor portraits, which is particularly well represented in the Düsseldorf collection, is rooted in the popular kabuki theatre. People came from far and wide to see the plays and wanted to take home souvenirs. Artists fulfilled this wish with coloured woodblocks, which were inexpensive to buy at the time. Kunisada, Kuniyoshi and the nowadays very popular Hiroshige were the three leading masters of the Japanese art of woodblock printing. In 1844, in honour of his master, Kunisada adopted his name, Toyokuni, which he used with the sobriquet Ichiyosai. Here Kunisada presents the actor Ichikawa Danjuro VIII as Matsuwakamaru-Chojuro in the play Sudigawa no Kagamon (The congratulatory coat of arms of the couple on the Sudigawa). The elegance and sumptuous colouring of the robes as well as the severe, dark tones of the landscape in the background are impressive. Matsuwakamaru’s flame-like straw collar symbolizes the element of fire, a subject from the series The Five Elements. (Barbara Til)