The Torii School — The Lineage of Actor Prints and 300 Years of Kabuki Signboards

What the Torii School Is — 300 Years of Kabuki Painters

The Torii school is a painters’ school in ukiyo-e that has continued from the middle Edo era to the present, for more than 300 years. Its features are decisively different from other schools:

• Specialized in actor prints (they hardly ever paint bijin-ga or landscapes)
• Exclusive contracts with the Three Edo Theaters (Nakamura-za, Ichimura-za, Morita-za), exclusively drawing signboards, playbills, and actor prints of the theater houses
• Runs an iemoto (headmaster) system, generation after generation succeeding to a name with the character “Kiyo (清)”
• Even the signboards and sujigaki (programs) of the modern Kabuki-za are still drawn by the head of the Torii school

That is, the Torii school is, more than “a school of ukiyo-e,” a professional group that carries out the visual branding of the commercial theater of kabuki. This is an extremely special position in the history of ukiyo-e.

Origin — From Kamigata to Edo

The first-generation Torii Kiyomoto (1645-1702) was originally a female-role actor (onnagata) in Osaka. Being a versatile man who painted his own theater signboards, in 1687 he moved to Edo together with his son Kiyonobu. This is the beginning of the Edo Torii school.

• Brought the signboard technique of kamigata (Osaka-Kyoto) kabuki to Edo
• Contracted with the Three Edo Theaters, monopolizing production of the theater-teahouse painted signboards and street playbills
• Raised his son Kiyonobu properly as a painter in Edo

Kiyomoto died in 1702, but by that time the monopoly-contract system of the Edo Torii school was already established.

Second-Generation Torii Kiyonobu (1664-1729) — Completer of the School

The one who established the Torii school as a “painters’ group” was the second-generation Kiyonobu. Born in Osaka as Kiyomoto’s son, he worked in Edo. Representative achievements:

1. Mass-Production System of Actor Prints

He put the theater signboards, which had been one-off works, onto the market as single-sheet prints. Actor prints were sold in time with theater runs, functioning as advertising for the play, and as star memorial goods. This is the prototype of modern bromides and celebrity-goods culture.

2. Establishment of “Hyōtan-ashi Mimizu-gaki”

The painting style that symbolizes the Torii school is hyōtan-ashi mimizu-gaki (gourd-legs, earthworm-drawing). To emphasize the acting of aragoto (rough-style) actors:

• Legs exaggerated thick like gourds
• Muscles of arms and chest drawn in lines squirming like earthworms
• Face with clear kumadori (kabuki makeup), eyes wide

This is not realism, but a stylized translation of the mie poses of kabuki. It is the technique of fixing on paper, in exaggerated muscles and lines of force, the single moment of a great pose on the stage.

3. Representative Works

• Ichikawa Danjūrō’s Take-nuki Gorō (around 1697)
• Arashi Kichisaburō as a female role (around 1710)
• Ichikawa Danjūrō’s Shibaraku (around 1720)

All are works whose subject is the aragoto of first- and second-generation Ichikawa Danjūrō. The connection Danjūrō family = Torii school continues throughout the Edo era.

The Lineage from the Third Generation Onward

The Torii school is inherited by succession within the family, continuing to today:

• Third-generation Kiyomasu (1706-1763) — Kiyonobu’s younger brother. Took in the early color-printing technique of the nishiki-e
• Fourth-generation Kiyonaga (1752-1815) — the only head to also enter the field of bijin-ga. A representative painter of the peak of nishiki-e (treated in a separate article)
• Fifth-generation Kiyomine (1787-1868) — actor prints of the late Edo era
• Sixth-eighth generations — in charge of the Kabuki-za signboards in Meiji and Shōwa
• The current head (ninth-generation Kiyomitsu, late 20th century-) — continues to draw Kabuki-za signboards even in the 21st century

A single painters’ family has, for more than 300 years, kept the same profession (kabuki signboards) — an example extremely rare in the world history of art.

The Skills and Economics of the Torii School

The work of the Torii school extended over many areas:

1. Theater Signboards

The omote-kanban (outer signboard) of the Three Edo Theaters — the large painted signboard hung on the front of the building. The lead actor’s mie pose was drawn huge, catching the eye of passersby. Corresponds to today’s movie theater poster.

2. Tsuji-banzuke (Street Playbills)

The fliers handed out for each run. They announced the month’s program, casting, and highlights with pictures. The prototype of today’s theater program.

3. Ezukushi (Picture Reviews)

Picture books explaining every scene of the play. A publication for the audience to preview or review the content.

4. Actor Single-Sheet Prints

Solo portrait prints of a run’s star actor. Sold at theater teahouses and picture-book shops, displayed in the homes of Edo townspeople.

5. Banzuke and Mitate-Banzuke

Charts of the run’s order and actor rankings. An information medium of Edo alongside sumo banzuke.

These mean the Torii school monopolized all visual items of the theater run. The theater town of the middle Edo era (Sakai-chō, Fukiya-chō, Kobiki-chō) was overflowing with Torii school prints.

The Meaning of the “Exclusive Contract”

The contract the Torii school signed with the Three Edo Theaters, in modern terms, means:

• An exclusive business-consignment contract
• Sustainability through succession
• A strong bond of trust with the theater managers (zamoto)

This functioned as a barrier to entry for other painters. From the middle Edo era on, many painters wanted to draw kabuki signboards, but almost no one directly challenged the Torii school’s territory. Even when Tōshūsai Sharaku (treated in Phase 3) briefly shocked the field with actor ōkubi-e, that too did not break the Torii school’s monopoly.

Continuation to the Present

After the Meiji Restoration, the Three Edo Theaters were dismantled, but the Torii school re-contracted with the Kabuki-za, opened in 1889 (Meiji 22), and continued the succession.

Today too:

• Part of the signboard art of the Kabuki-za (Tokyo)
• Posters for some programs of the National Theatre
• The cover art of the sujigaki (programs)

These are still drawn by the current head of the Torii school (now the ninth generation). As a case where a single professional brand has continued through inheritance for more than 300 years, it is extremely special even in the cultural history of Japan.

The Torii School Within Ukiyo-e History

Looking at ukiyo-e history as a whole, the position of the Torii school is:

1. Immediately after Moronobu invented the “single-sheet print,” it monopolized the biggest commercial genre (actor prints)
2. Before the nishiki-e (Harunobu), it built up the mold of actor prints, and prepared the ground for going multicolored in the nishiki-e era
3. Even when actor prints by Sharaku, Kunisada, Kuniyoshi and other schools appeared, the signboard monopoly of the Torii school did not shake
4. Even in the print-decline period after Meiji, it survived by tying itself to the kabuki industry

That is, the Torii school is a special group that, outside the fashion current of ukiyo-e, kept producing actor prints as an industry for 300 years.

From This Article to the Next

Through Moronobu and the Torii school, the subject matter and distribution of ukiyo-e were established. But the pictures of this age were still mainly sumizuri-e + hand-coloring, and not full multicolor printing. In the next article, we trace the technical trinity that turned ukiyo-e into a “picture” — the division of labor among painter, engraver (horishi), and printer (surishi) — and the concrete process of woodblock printing. To speak of the nishiki-e (Harunobu), we first need to understand this technical basis.