Description
A long yellow drape forms the lion’s body in Kitagawa Utamaro’s Lion Dance, above the performers’ red and floral trousers. Musicians and watchers share the wide scene beside an open-windowed room. The animal’s theatrical presence is inseparable from the people beneath and around it, making participation part of the spectacle.
Published in 1789, the woodblock print uses ink and color on paper. Utamaro gives a temporary performance a lasting form, allowing its represented presence to be encountered more closely than the changing action would normally permit. The work’s appeal lies in the meeting of spectacle and bodily effort. A dance becomes an image without losing the idea of movement, preserving the shared pleasure of an event whose life depends on participation.
Read our guide to giclée prints or browse the Kitagawa Utamaro collection.
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