The Play "Sugawara's Secrets of Calligraphy", from the series Joruri Puppet Plays

The Play "Sugawara's Secrets of Calligraphy", from the series Joruri Puppet Plays

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Utagawa Toyoharu

Bunraku, considered one of the four forms of Japanese classical theater, combined puppet artistry with joruri, a dramatic narrative chanting accompanied by a three-stringed shamisen. Throughout the eighteenth century bunraku developed in both competition and cooperation with the kabuki theater. Many plays were written first for its stage before being adapted for kabuki. Toyoharu includes the specific stage props of the boat and water to suggest it is the second scene of the first act of the popular Sugawara’s Secrets of Calligraphy, where the young lovers Prince Tokiyo and Kariya rendezvous on the banks of the Kamo River.
Artist
Utagawa Toyoharu
(Japanese, 1735 - 1814)
Title
The Play "Sugawara's Secrets of Calligraphy", from the series Joruri Puppet Plays
Date
1770-1780
Medium
Color woodcut
Dimensions
249 x 362 mm Overall
Credit
Bequest of John H. Van Vleck
Accession No.
1980.3095
Classification
Prints
Geography
Japan

Related

By 1925, purchased in Japan by Frank Lloyd Wright; ca. 1926, acquired by The Bank of Wisconsin; 1928, sold to Edward Burr Van Vleck (Madison, WI); 1943, passed through inheritance to Edward’s son, John H. Van Vleck (Madison, WI); 9 January 1980, bequeathed by John H. Van Vleck to the Elvehjem Museum of Art [now called Chazen Museum of Art]

  • Mueller, Laura. "Competition and Collaboration: Japanese Prints of the Utagawa School." Leiden, The Netherlands: Hotei Publishing, 2007. p. 72, no. 24
  • Elvehjem Museum of Art. "The Edward Burr Van Vleck Collection of Japanese Prints." Madison: Elvehjem Museum of Art, 1990. p. 320

  • Competition and Collaboration: Japanese Prints of the Utagawa School: Chazen Museum of Art, 11/3/2007–1/6/2008
  • Kabuki: The Drama of Japanese Prints: Elvehjem Museum of Art, 4/19/2003–6/22/2003

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