Description
Nakamura Nakazō I takes the role of the ghost of Shiragiku in Katsukawa Shunshō’s print, bringing a supernatural character into contact with the presence of a living actor. The figure looks upward beneath a leafy branch, enveloped in long, dark robes. That direction of attention gives the spectral role an unsettled quality, while the foliage locates it within a tangible world that makes the imagined presence feel unexpectedly close.
Created around 1778, the work is a nishiki-e woodblock print in ink and color on paper. Shunshō preserves the particular association between Nakazō and this spectral role within an atmosphere of imagined presence. Its interest lies in the theater’s ability to give an imagined presence a human form. The image keeps that act of embodiment available to close attention, allowing the strange and the recognizable to occupy the same represented figure.
Read our guide to giclée prints or browse the Katsukawa Shunshō collection.
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