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Visual Arts by Monique Westra Sharaku Interpreted by Japan’s Contemporary Artists Triangle Gallery of Visual Arts Runs until July 22 The fascinating portraits highlighted in a new exhibit at Triangle are among the most distinctive of all the ukiyo-e woodblock prints from 18th and 19th century Japan. These images of popular entertainment, poetically referred to as "the floating world" or ukiyo-e, were transmitted to Europe directly by the thousands in the 19th century (often as wrapping paper) and also indirectly via the stylistic adaptations of the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists. One intriguing fact that emerges from this exhibition is the lingering mystery that surrounds the creator of these famous images. In May of 1794, an artist known as Toshusai Sharaku suddenly appeared on the artistic scene in Edo (now Tokyo). Over the course of the following months, he produced a stunning portfolio of 28 prints featuring half-length portraits of the most famous actors of the day. His visual characterizations, rendered in an exaggerated and simplified style, were so penetrating and, to some, disturbing, that his popularity as an ukiyo-e artist was very short-lived. Maybe because of the dramatic drop in the demand for his portraits, his art underwent a transformation. He abandoned portraiture and went on to create colourful and crowded narrative compositions that seemed to dissipate the power and intensity of his more focused individualized portraits. But then, in February 1795, he seems to have vanished, as suddenly as he had appeared. Sharaku's entire artistic output of 140 prints was produced in 10 months. To this day, no one knows what happened to him or who he really was. Some scholars of Japanese art believe that he may have been an actor himself or that the name Sharaku was the pseudonym of a famous artist who, for reasons unknown, chose to present a new style under an assumed identity. Sharaku was forgotten until a German scholar, Julius Kurt, rescued his art and reputation from obscurity in the early 20th century. In Japan he is revered, and the present exhibition examines the undeniable impact of his art on graphic design and contemporary art today by focusing on what is arguably his best body of work, namely the 28 portraits. The 200-year-old original prints, now in the permanent collections of museums around the world, are faded and many are not in good condition. This exhibition features modern-day reproductions. Using the original woodblocks and recreating the historical technique of Sharaku, the Adachi Institute of Woodcut Prints in Japan has produced prints of the 28 Kabuki actors in vibrant colours that give a vivid impression of what these dazzling portraits looked like when they were first printed For this travelling show, however, 11 young contemporary Japanese artists were invited to respond creatively to the Sharaku portraits. The personal results of their efforts, in different media, are displayed in the upstairs gallery. The exhibition also features a selection of posters designed for a 1995 exhibition that celebrated the 200th anniversary of Sharaku. The portraits are captivating in the sheer power of their expression and in the graphic directness of their style. They are like cartoons, with their bold lines, bright colours and flat shapes. Caricature-like, too, are the exaggerated, distorted facial expressions on oversize heads, and the emphatic, gesturing hands that emerge from compact body masses. This apparent stylistic simplicity belies the sophistication and the brilliance of distilling the essence of a persona, caught in a precise moment of high drama, to a few incisive marks on paper. Each frame is dominated by the looming presence of one or two people shown in half-length portraits set against a neutral, deep grey background that contrasts with the pallor of their skin tones and the bright colours and patterns of their clothing. Faces are never shown straight on – all are three-quarter views that emphasize the shape of the nose. At this angle, the eyes always seem to fix their penetrating gazes on an object beyond the picture frame – a diagonal visual thrust that bypasses the spectator, thereby reinforcing the intensity and concentration of the actor in his role. Hands, in telling gestures, are often linked to faces by linear elements representing drapery folds in the clothing, as in Ichikawa Ebizo as Takemura Sadanoshin. A closer look at this portrait of Ebizo, the leading actor of the day, reveals Sharaku’s manipulation of formal elements – composition, colour and line – to create a dramatic sense of inner turmoil and anxiety. Brought up very close to the picture plane and cropped on three sides by the frame, the body mass seems monumental. The huge head is dropped and thrust outward, slumped below the level of the shoulders. Ebizo’s hawk nose outlined against the solid orange mass of the kimono, his grimacing, thin mouth, small, glaring eyes and raised black eyebrows create an effect of mounting tension, repeated in the gesture of his clenched hands. Elements from the Sadanoshin portrait reappear in eight of the contemporary posters. Typically, the graphic designers tend to isolate telling features, like eyes, eyebrows, nose, mouth, topknot or silhouettes. One of the best is a stunning untitled poster by Takahisa Kamijo that enlarges only the clenched, nervous hands in a white line drawing on rich blue textured ground, centrally placed, as in the original Sharaku print, near the bottom frame. It is the part that reveals the essence of the whole. However, in most of the posters, Sharaku’s dramatic intensity is diluted into cleverness and wit. The young contemporary artists deal more with the whole image than its parts or else they respond abstractly to the general feeling or to the prints’ formal qualities. What is most intriguing in the exhibition is the ironic play on identity. Each portrait is of an actor who is shown in his depiction of a protagonist in a play – a portrayal of a portrayal, as it were. And, to continue the reverberating identity chain, we find yet another link in the contemporary show upstairs. Yasumasa Morimura, represents himself in a self-portrait that casts his own revised and disguised visage as Sharaku’s interpretation of the actor Ebizo. Mimicking the exact pose of the Sharaku portrait, he digitally collages a photograph of his own face and hands onto the Sharaku image, adding marks to transform and submerge his identity into that of the actor. In another Morimura simulation, he casts himself in the seductive role of a geisha. This is yet another twist, for in Sharaku’s bewitching portraits of female characters, what we see is actually a male actor who has been made up to appear female, a convention known as onnagata. What is identity? A reversible role, Morimura seems to suggest. This brings us back to the central mystery of Sharaku himself, an artist whose elusive identity continues to confound.

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