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Overview
Besides his two important bijin-ga (beautiful women) prints, Te Papa's collection currently has include four works by Kesai Eisen (1790-1848) from an 11-composition set, each illustrating one of the acts of Kanadehon Chūshingura (Treasury of Loyal Retainers), one of the enduring classics of the kabuki repertoire. The play’s original 1748 jōruri (‘narrated script’) recounted the historical events of the so-called Akō Affair of 1701–03 in the jidaimono format, which reframed the main protagonists in the guise of earlier events. Its Byzantine narrative melded numerous sub-plots into an 11-hour theatrical extravaganza. In the play’s opening act, ‘Tsurugaoka shinzen’ (‘Before the Shrine at Tsurugaoka’), the sinister Kō no Moronao offends the court novice Enya Hanga Takasada when he attempts to seduce Hangan’s wife, the demure Lady Kaoyo. For his illustration of the second act, ‘Momonoi no yashiki’ (‘At Momonoi’s Mansion’), Eisen represented the famous matsu-kiri ‘cutting the pine’ scene, introducing Hangan’s loyal ally Momonoi Wakasanosuke, his retainer Kakogawa Honzō, Hangan’s young retainer Oboshi Rikiya and his betrothed, Honzō’s daughter Konami. Early the following morning, while attending a Nō play at the Kamakura villa of Ashikaga Tadayoshi, Enya Hangan is goaded into attacking Moronao.
The fifth act 'Yoichibei oshi' ('The Murder of Yoichibei'), features the sub-plot of Hayano Kanpei, who had fled to the countryside in disgrace late in the events of Act III. Kanpei’s father-in-law, Yoichibei, has sold his daughter Okaru – Kanpei’s betrothed – to a Gion brothel to raise funds to exonerate Kanpei. Yoichibei is killed as he returns home with the money, and Kanpei is convinced he is responsible for shooting him. Eisen’s illustration for Act VI, ‘Kanpei sumika’ (‘At the Dwelling of Kanpei’), draws together the complex threads of the aftermath. At lower right, the Gion brothel keeper, Ichimonjiya, is collecting Okaru, attended by her weeping mother. The distraught Kanpei is seated on the veranda behind them, about to disembowel himself in shame. An ominous group of crows collects in the pine tree behind the scene. Two of the loyal rōnin (leaderless samurai), Hara Goemon and Senzaki Yagora, can be seen arriving in the distance at left, their identities hidden under deep sedge hats. Too late, they reveal Kanpei's innocence, his name is added to the register of loyal rōnin, and he seals his commitment to the vendetta with his own blood as he completes his grim act of disembowelment.
Stage representations of Chūshingura are exciting and filled with tension. The excitement was sustained in part by the music and dance performances that informed acts or by the actors’ highly expressive frozen mie (poses) that punctuated key moments in each act. Compositions like Eisen’s capitalised on these mie moments, set in naturalistic landscape settings or in syntheses of stage-set constructions and contrived landscape views. These compositions provided Eisen’s viewers with something of a shorthand narrative composed of snapshot views of key events – images they could view at their leisure, and around which they could crystallise their own imaginative reflections on the play’s themes of on (obligation of debts of filial piety), kō (honour), chū (loyalty) and giri (fulfilment of obligation before self-interest).
See: David Bell, 'Floating world at Te Papa: the Heriot collection', Tuhinga, 30 (2019), pp. 56-81.
Dr Mark Stocker Curator, Historical International Art May 2019