IHL Cat. #2691
The eighth print in the twelve print set titled "Twelve Months of Chikamatsu" published in by the unknown publisher group the "Great Chikamatsu Print Publishing Association." This print depicts the puppet character Ukiyo Matahei, holding an unfurled fan, in the scene "The Departure of Michizane"[1] in the puppet play "The Stuttering Painter"[2] by the great playwright Chikamatsu Monzaemon (1653-1725). The play premiered as a ningyo-joruri (puppet play) at the Takemotoza Theatre in Osaka in around 1708.
The "stuttering painter" is in reference to the character Ukiyo Matahei, an impoverished, stuttering, ōtsu (folk-art) artist, who hopes to receive a Tosa-school name from his former master, the painter Tosa Shogen Mitsunobu. In the print we see the "chief operator" with his right arm inside Matahei's upper right sleeve with his holding the fan.
A web search, performed March 1, 2024, reveals only three other prints from the set which were designed by the artists Natori Shunsen 名取春仙 (1886-1960), Komura Settai 小村雪岱 (1887-1940) and Shimizu Miezō 清水三重三 (1893-1962).
[1] The attribution of the scene being portrayed in the print, "The Departure of Michizane," is taken from Barbara Curtis Adachi's identification of the scene in the below photograph copied from the Columbia University Libraries site https://bunraku.library.columbia.edu/images/59137/ [accessed 3-1-24]
[2] The play 傾城反魂香 is also seen translated as The Courtesan's Soul-Returning Incense, The Courtesan of the Spirit-summoning Incense, Courtesan of the Hangon Incense. "The Stuttering Painter" is a subplot in the play.
The impoverished painter Matahei , fan unfurled, with his teacher Tosa-school painter Mitsunobu, background right, in a rehearsal for the bunraku play The Stuttering Painter
image source: The Barbara Curtis Adachi Bunraku Collection, Columbia University Libraries
The Puppet Masters
Source: "The Puppets and the Operators," appearing in "Bunraku, The Art of the Japanese Puppet Theatre," Donald Keene, Kodansha International Ltd., 1965, p. 56-57.
The three-man puppet is worked by a principal operator, an operator of the left hand, and an operator of the feet. The principal operator inserts his left hand into the puppet from the back under the obi, and his right hand through the opening in the upper part of the puppet's right sleeve. With his left hand he grips the armature which extends down from the puppet's neck, thereby moving the head and (if the head is so equipped) the eyes, eyebrows, and mouth, by strings fastened to flexible whalebone strips. With his right hand he operates the puppet's right hand, using a toggle halfway up the puppet's arm to move the whalebone "springs" in the hands. The operator's left hand also moves the puppet's body, whether in motion across the stage or in agitated breathing as it sit in one spot.
The second operator moves the left hand by means of a stick about fifteen inches long joined to the puppet's arm near the elbow. A stick of this length is necessary because this operator cannot come as close to the puppet as the principal operator, who holds the puppet in his arms. The second operator pulls with his right hand cords attached to a toggle on the manipulating stick. Normally he makes no use of his left hand in moving the puppet.
The third operator works the feet of male puppets, guiding himself by the principal operator's movements. He makes the puppet walk or run, stand or sit, as the text requires. This operator not only must convince the audience that the puppet is actually moving on solid ground, but supply appropriate noises of stamping or running by striking his own feet on the floorboards. Female puppets are not provided with feet unless a role specifically requires them. The operator simulates the motions of legs and feet within the kimono by bunching the hems as the character walks, or by rounding the kimono to suggest knees when the puppet sits. Sometimes use is made of a kind of weighted pillow suspended from the bamboo hoop frame to give an additional roundness to the figures of female puppets when they sit. As in the case of male puppets, excited movements onstage are amplified by the operator's stamping feet.
The operators of the left hand and of the feet are attired completely in black and wear gauzy black hoods over their heads. Originally the principal operators were so attired, in the interests of complete anonymity, but as time went on, they came to rival the Kabuki actors in the care with which they adorned themselves. Today, the principal operators normally perform without a hood and in brightly colored formal costumes, through in plays of a particularly tragic nature, they may wear black, and in new or recently revived works they may also wear a hood. Not only the vanity of the principal operators but public demand to see the faces of the famous operators accounts for their rather excessively conspicuous presence in most plays, a violation of the anonymity which should mark these devoted servants of the puppets.
昭和十五年八月一日印刷
昭和十五年八月十日發行
版權 所有
製複許不
(非賣品)
尼崎市竹谷町一丁目一七番地 1-17
編輯兼 發行者 加藤省吾
東京市淺草區雷門二ノ九 2-9-1
印刷者 池田富藏
尼崎市竹谷町一丁目一七番地
發行所 大近松版畫刊行會
電話一七八三番
振替大阪一二二、二三〇番
『近松十二月』 第一回配布 傾城反魂香
筆者 山口帅平
鑑修 食滿南北 食満南北
限定三百部ノ內
Printed: August 1, 1940
Published: August 10, 1940
copyright reserved
reproduction prohibited
(not for sale)
17-1, Takeya-cho 1-chome, Amagasaki City, Hyogo Prefecture, Japan
editor and publisher: Katō Shōgo
Kaminarimon, Asakusa, Taito, Tokyo 111-0034, Japan
Printer: Ikeda Tomizō?
1-17, Takeya-cho, Amagasaki City, Hyogo Prefecture, Japan
Publisher: Dai Chikamatsu hanga kankōkai
(The Great Chikamatsu Prints Publication Society)
telephone number 178
bank transfer number Osaka 122, 230
『Twelve Months of Chikamatsu』
First edition Matahei the Stutterer in Keisei Hangonkō
artist: Yamaguchi Sōhei
editor: Kema Nanboku (1880-1957)
limited edition of 300 copies