Shibaimachi no Akatsuki

1886

Xylographic (Nishiki-c), 328 x 223 mm (sheet: 371 x 252 mm) Oban.

Proof no. 43 of the suite: Tsuki No hyakushi (The Hundred Aspects of the Moon).

Enkatsu engraver, seal Taiso.

Short tear in the bottom margin, formerly restored

“This print offers a snapshot of the early morning in Shibaimachi, the “theater district.”

In addition to its three kabuki theaters, the area was teeming with restaurants and ochaya, tea houses where spectators came, after the play, to seek entertainment of another nature.

In 1841, one of the two Edo's theater districts burned down, and a puritanical councilor forbade their reconstruction - this was also the time of restrictions imposed on ukiyo-e in terms of subjects and colors. All the city's theaters - including the puppet theaters - ended up being transferred to Asakusa, an outlying district to the north.

Theaters and tea houses were now lined up on either side of a wide alley, approximately three hundred meters long. Without being surrounded by walls like the Yoshiwara or other pleasure districts, the sector had its special gate, and formed a world of its own.

The two cubic silhouettes which crown the background are yagura, cage-shaped turrets built above the entrance to each of the three kabuki theaters in the district. They were originally used to advertise shows to the sound of a drum. Around 1818, they became pure architectural ornaments, decorated with the emblem of the theaters.

To erect a yagura was to establish a new theater.

The hairstyle of this beauty and her teeth dyed black suggest that the damn is married. Her fashionable dress, her gesture and her half-open mouth exude coquetry. Its lower lip is painted with green “sasairobeni” or red the color of “stilt grass”, so named because it reproduces the two-tone appearance of this Asian plant: first green when in its pot, the pigment gives a deep red when applied in one or two layers and develops over the course of superimposed passages a green iridescence. The effect was very sought after, compared to the reflections of a magnificent beetle called tamamushi, “gem insect”. No doubt we prized the contrast of dark green and bright red, linked to Japan's fascination with light and shadow.

This bijin stands out against a purple background of an aurora reaching the sky, where the gibbous moon lingers and a few bats in flight towards their diurnal lair.iạii

In: A HUNDRED ASPECTS OF THE MOON, John STEVENSON, 2018, Editions Citadelles and MAZENOD

The suite of “One Hundred Aspects of the Moon”, inspired by historical or legendary stories from China and Japan, is Yoshitoshi's most famous series, begun in 1885 and completed just before his death in 1892. Already at the time, each new print published was an event, the prints often running out on the morning of their release. publication.