政岡 Masaoka, #16 (The Spectre of Nikki Danjō), Utagawa Kuniyoshi

Archive Label date unknown: This scene is taken from the popular kabuki play "The Disputed Succession" (Meiboku sendai hagi). Due to a series of prohibitions enacted that same year that forbade portrayals of actors, printmakers resorted to illustrating favorite actors and kabuki plays as imaginary narrative. The villain of the story, Nikki Danjō, is seen as a ghostly specter, hovering threateningly over the lady-in-waiting Masaoka, who hides the young heir to her lord's estate. Nikki Danjō plotted to kill both the lord and his son, but through acts of extreme loyalty, including enduring the death of her own son, Masaoka succeeds in protecting the heir to Sendai Castle. Archive Label date unknown: The kabuki play, "Meiboku sendai hagi" (The Disputed Succession) involves the attempt by Nikki Danjo to take over the Date clan holdings. To do this, he must dispose of both the Lord of Sendai Castle and his son, Tsurukiyo, who has been left in the care of his nurse, Masaoka. Tsurukiyo escapes death when Masaoka's son unwittingly eats some poisoned candy intended for his master. Masaoka here is constrained to witness her son's death without showing any emotion in order to protect Tsurukiyo, who though but a child, is her master. This repression and simultaneous expression of emotion, long prized in Japanese art and drama, is expressed in Kuniyoshi's print, which presents us with the spectre of the nurse's fear, a visible manifestation of her emotions. The contrasting grey spectre of Nikki Danjo generates the print's tension and suspense.