Poets, Beauty and Priest: A Meiji Kabuki Triptych by Toyohara Kunichika | 豊原国周

Toyohara Kunichika (豊原国周) spent his life drawing the kabuki stage, and this triptych from around 1878, known as Poets, Beauty and Priest, shows his theater world at its most atmospheric. The design brings four actors and their roles together on a beach lined with wooden pilings, the sea stretching out behind them.

From the left, the figures are the poetess Shiraren, played by Ichikawa Danjuro; the abbot of Gokurakuji, played by Onoe Kikunosuke; a great beauty of the Ogiya house, played by Suketakaya Takasuke; and the priest Seishin of Gokurakuji, played by Onoe Kikugoro. The woman holds a white cloth in her mouth, and two of the men carry folding umbrellas, details that give the scene its strange, charged stillness.

The composition is typical of Kunichika's late style: bold, unhesitating linework, deep reds and blues, and actors posed at the very edge of self-revelation. Each figure is labeled in the cartouches along the top of the sheets, giving the print the quality of a theatrical document as well as a work of art.

For the viewer today, the pleasure lies in the tension between the four figures: a poet, a priest, a beauty, and another priest, caught in a moment whose full story is left to the imagination. It is a beautiful example of the Meiji kabuki print from the master who knew the stage better than any artist of his generation.