Print 1834 - 1866

This woodblock print was made in Japan by Utagawa Sadakage, who was active in the first half of the 19th century. We see an actor standing in costume before a suggestion of scenery. Prints like these were part of a complex popular culture in Japanese cities. Japan was at this time ruled by a military dictatorship, the shogunate, which imposed a rigid social hierarchy and exerted strict control over the press. Woodblock prints became an important medium for theatrical advertising, celebrity portraits, and depictions of city life. The theatrical world represented in many of these prints had a close, sometimes uneasy, relationship to the political order. On the one hand, the theatres needed to remain within the strict moral guidelines set by the shogunate. On the other, Kabuki theatre, in particular, was often a space for subversion, satire, and the challenging of social norms. To learn more about this print, one might research censorship laws and the social history of theatre in Japan. Studying the lives and careers of actors can help us understand more about the artwork’s cultural significance.