Perspective View of the Interior of the Nakamura Theater with Ichikawa Ebizo II as Yanone Goro (1740): Art, History and Details

Perspective View of the Interior of the Nakamura Theater with Ichikawa Ebizo II as Yanone Goro (1740) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Okumura Masanobu (Japanese, 1686–1764).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

The print illustrates the typical interior of a Kabuki theater. The stage was connected to the audience by the hanamichi, the ramp or runway extending from the stage to the rear of the theater over which the actors would strut in dramatic roles. Patrons often stayed all day for the plays. Unlike quiet Western audiences, Kabuki fans were spirited, buying food from vendors and even shouting praises to their favorite actors as they came onto the stage. In 1734, the first Japanese manual on perspective was printed. Masanobu was probably the first printmaker to use this method of describing three-dimensional space on a two-dimensional support. He helped popularize the perspective print, and he introduced other innovations such as two-color printing and hand-coloring—this print is hand-colored using yellow, red (tan), and red-brown.

Object facts

• Title: Perspective View of the Interior of the Nakamura Theater with Ichikawa Ebizo II as Yanone Goro
• Date: 1740
• Creator attribution: Okumura Masanobu (Japanese, 1686–1764)
• Culture: Japan, Edo period (1615–1868)
• Type: Print
• Technique: hand-colored woodblock print
• Dimensions: Sheet: 40.2 x 63.7 cm (15 13/16 x 25 1/16 in.)
• Collection: Japanese Art
• Department: Japanese Art
• Accession number: 1916.1154

Collection credit

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. J. H. Wade

Further reading listed by the museum

• Neils, Jenifer. “The Twain Shall Meet.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, vol. 72, no. 6, 1985, pp. 326–359.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.