Sharaku – Contemporary Variations on Classical Japanese Prints
November 15, 2007
The exhibition comprised three sections: ‘Reproductions of Sharaku’; ‘Sharaku and Graphic Art’, and ‘Homage to Sharaku’.
In the ‘Reproductions’ section were shown recent reproductions of all twenty-eight bust portraits by Sharaku as created by the Adachi Institute of Xylography (Woodcut Prints). Among the some 140 works by Sharaku, currently identified, the most admired are the series of bust portraits from his earliest period. This series was based on kabuki and kyogen plays performed in May 1794 at the three Kabuki theatres in Edo. It is easy to imagine that these ‘odd’ portraits, depicting the deformed faces of kabuki actors, evoked a controversial response from the public when they were first seen by the people of Edo who were familiar until then only with the actor portraits of the Katsukawa school or Utamaro’s beauty prints.
From a historical perspective, there are quite a few points of contact between modern printmaking and the Ukiyo-e prints from the Edo Period. Besides the purely formal and technical similarities between the two art forms, one can also detect analogies in the part they have played or are playing in the life of their respective societies.
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