1740
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Perspective View of the Interior of the Nakamura Theater with Ichikawa Ebizo II as Yanone Goro is a 1740 by Okumura Masanobu, a Baroque work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see a colorful interior of a Kabuki theater with actors on stage and a crowd of people watching. The theater's design is interesting, with a ramp called the hanamichi connecting the stage to the audience. This allowed actors to interact with the crowd. To learn more about this style of art, look up the subject: japan, edo period (1615–1868).
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…
Read the full account in the museum source.
Okumura Masanobu lived in Edo (now Tokyo) when the city was a flashy, fast-growing hub of theater, gossip, and new ideas.
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