The Actor Yamashita Kinsaku holding a puppet of the Empress in the play "Diary Kept on a Journey by Sea to Izu (Funadama Izu Nikki)," performed at the Nakamura Theater in the first month, 1725 1725

This is a woodblock print made in Japan in 1725 by Torii Kiyonobu II, and it depicts the actor Yamashita Kinsaku holding a puppet of the Empress in a play. Consider the role of theater in Japan at this time, a popular entertainment where social hierarchies were often inverted or subverted. Here, we see an actor, a figure of relatively low social status, embodying both himself and the Empress, using a puppet. This image invites us to think about the relationship between representation and power. How does the act of portraying a powerful figure affect that figure's authority? Are they made more relatable or less so? Historians turn to playbills, diaries, and other records to understand the context in which such images were made and consumed. Through these sources, we come to understand that art is never neutral, but always implicated in the social and political dynamics of its time.