Background
Hasegawa Sadanobu III (三代目長谷川貞信 1881-1963), who began as Konobu III (三代目小信), worked principally in the shin hanga ("new prints" or neo-ukiyo-e: 新版画) manner, producing yakusha-e (pictures of actors: 役者絵), bunraku-ga (pictures of the puppet theater: 文楽画), and bijinga (pictures of beautiful women: 美人画) for the Kyoto publisher Uchida.
The actor Nakamura Ganjirô I (1860-1935) was born in the Shinmachi pleasure quarter, Osaka. The son of the actor Arashi Kakuzô I (嵐珏蔵 1841-1881), his mother Otae was the daughter of the owner of the Ogiya (House of the fan, 扇屋), a prestigious ageya (house of assignation, 揚屋). Starting in 1872, Ganjirô studied with Jitsukawa Enjaku I (實川延若 1831-1885), and in the following year became Nakamura Ganjirô, a name that he would use until his death. Ganjirô set aside his kabuki career temporarily in 1875-1877 to become a Bunraku puppeteer named Yoshida Tamatarô. He is said to have been the only actor able to so completely absorb the art and style of leading actors in both Tokyo and Osaka. Ganjirô I gathered his best roles into a collection called Ganjirô Jûnikyoku (Ganjirô's twelve pieces, 玩辞楼十二曲): Kawashô, Shigure no kotatsu, Fûin giri, Koi no mizuumi, Daianji zutsumi, Akanezome, Goban Taiheiki, Tsuchiya chikara, Wankyû sue no Matsuyama, Tôjûrô no koi, Kuruwa Bunshô, and Hikimado. When he died, an extra-edition newspaper was published that, for the first time in Japan, memorialized the death of an actor.
Design
Chikamatsu Monzaemon's great puppet drama "Shinjû Ten no Amijima" (The love suicides at Amijima, 心中天網島), considered by many to be his finest drama, premiered in 1720. The tale was inspired by an actual double suicide years earlier at Kyoto's Daichô Temple. The play had an earlier staging in 1709, while the Shinjû ten Amijima Shigure no kotatsu (or simply Shigure no kotatsu) scene was taken from Shinjû Kamiya Jihei (1778) by Chikamatsu Hanji and Takeda Bunkichi. In 1922 Nakamura Ganjirô performed in the first kabuki version that was faithful to Chikamatsu Monzaemon's original, and the role remains a family-lineage specialty to this day.
Kamiya Jihei, an Osaka paper merchant, aged 28, is married to the devoted and loving Osan with whom he has two children. However, he is in love with the nineteen-year old courtesan Koharu from the Kinokuni-ya in the Sonezaki pleasure quarter. Osan soon sees signs of the lovers drifting toward suicide in their hopeless affair and has secretly written to Koharu asking her to save Jihei's life by giving him up. Koharu agrees because she could not shirk her duty to Osan as one woman to another. Jihei comes to believe that Koharu has no intention of keeping her pledges to him and bitterly rejects her, feeling he was wrong in his affections for Koharu and in his neglect of his family. He flings the 29 written pledges Koharu has given to him over the three years of their affair and forces Koharu to give up his own 29 pledges in return. Later, however, learning that Tahei, his love rival, is going to ransom Koharu from bondage to her brothel. Osan fears that the noble-hearted Koharu, who clearly despises Tahei, will kill herself after he redeems her, and so Osan asks Jihei to save the courtesan. But he does not have the money to ransom Koharu himself. After Tahei redeems her, the lovers have no choice but to escape together. Their double suicide is preceded by their famous "farewell journey of many bridges" before finally reaching the Daicho Temple at Amijima. They decide to die apart and in different ways so as to honor Osan. Jihei, with Koharu encouraging him, stabs her, clumsily at first, then again more decisively. Jihei then hangs himself with Koharu's obi, which he has tied to a sluice gate.
Sadanobu's design portrays Ganjirô as Kamiya Jihei in the Shigure no kotatsu scene of Chikamatsu Monzaemon's Shinjû Ten no Amijima when it was staged in 11/1933 at the Misono-za (御園座), Nagoya. This is a formidable portrait, the equal of many Shin hanga actor designs by other artists of the 1920s and 1930s, such as Yoshikawa Kanpô (吉川観方 1894-1979) and Natori Shunsen (名取春仙 1886-1960). The fine printing and rarity of this work make it a very desirable acquisition for the Shin hanga collector.
References: NKE, p. 583
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