Tōshūsai Sharaku — Ten Months of Mystery and the Shock of Actor Ōkubi-e

Ten Months of Mystery

Tōshūsai Sharaku (dates unknown) is the most mysterious painter in ukiyo-e history. His active period is from the fifth month of Kansei 6 (1794) to the first month of Kansei 7 (1795), only ten months. Within it, he produced more than 140 prints, and then suddenly disappeared.

All the works were published by the publisher Tsutaya Jūzaburō. Tsutaya was the greatest publisher in Edo, who had launched Utamaro. This fact is the key to understanding the meaning of Sharaku’s work.

Sudden Appearance — May 1794

In May 1794, in the shop fronts of Edo’s picture-book stores, actor prints unlike any before appeared:

• Backgrounds in kuro-kirazuri (black mica printing) — expensive mica printing applied in black, a luxurious finish
• Ōkubi-e — close-up of face and upper body
• The ‘quirks’ and ‘defects’ of the actor’s face — not beautification, but exaggerated non-beautiful description

All these were released under the name of Tōshūsai Sharaku, an unknown painter. Simultaneously with publication, they sparked a great pro-and-con debate in Edo.

Sharaku’s Style — “Not Beautifying the Actor”

Until then, actor prints had been divided into two schools:

1. Torii school stylization — the aragoto pose, kumadori, gourd-legs earthworm-drawing. The mold of acting
2. Katsukawa Shunshō’s nigao — actual facial features, but basically beautified

Sharaku broke both:

• Emphasizing the quirks of the face — protruding teeth, three-white eyes, big nose, drooping eye-corners
• A single moment of expression — the face at the instant emotion moves
• Pose of the fingers — a real capture of a single moment of a stage pose
• The individuality of the actor himself — not the mold of the role, but the face of this person (=the individual)

This is close to modern caricature. But Sharaku’s grounding is not exaggeration but observation, and he draws “non-beautiful” people with the same precision as “beautiful” ones. A portraitist with a kind of scientist’s eye.

Representative Works

Sandaime Ōtani Oniji as Edobei (May 1794)

Sharaku’s most famous work, and considered the greatest masterpiece of ukiyo-e actor prints.

• The villain Edobei, a yakko extorting money
• The moment of spreading his hands to grab
• A distorted, menacing face, sharp eyes
• The black mica background makes the actor stand out

Even to modern eyes, it has an extraordinary force. “The chill of the villain” rises from the paper.

Sandaime Sawamura Sōjūrō as Nagoya Sanza (May 1794)

Though the role is a handsome man, Sharaku does not hide the quirks of the outline, eyes, and mouth. Shocking for Sawamura Sōjūrō fans.

Ichikawa Ebizō as Takemura Sadanoshin (May 1794)

A stout old actor. The bags under the eyes and slack of the jaw are drawn honestly. Catches a single moment of “an aged handsome man.”

Yodaime Iwai Hanshirō as Shigenoi (May 1794)

An onnagata role. Draws the complexity of the male face of a man playing a woman. The masculinity of the skeleton, neck, and shoulders shows through the makeup.

Four-Period Change in Style

Sharaku’s ten months divide into four periods:

Period 1 (May 1794): 28 Ōkubi-e

Black-mica ōkubi-e, the highest quality. The above masterpieces concentrate here.

Period 2 (July-August 1794): 38 Full-Figure and Multicolor Prints

From ōkubi-e to full-figure, and from mica backgrounds to normal printing. Quality drops but quantity rises.

Period 3 (November 1794): 58 Full-Figure and Simplified Prints

Background further simplified. Face observation loosens. Clearly in mass-production mode.

Period 4 (First month of 1795): About 15 Sumo Prints and Others

From actor prints, the subject expanded to sumo wrestler prints and so on. Quality drops further. He disappears with these.

The peak of quality is Period 1, and quality drops rapidly afterward. This suggests market response fell short of expectations.

Why Did He Disappear? — The “Poor Reception” Theory

Leading theories for why Sharaku vanished in ten months:

1. Commercial Failure

• The mainstream demand for actor prints was “beautify the actor one supports”
• Sharaku’s non-beautified faces were poorly received by actor fans
• Tsutaya Jūzaburō planned it for hype, but sales did not grow
• The quality decline of Periods 2-4 is inferred to be the publisher’s request for a return to sellable pictures

2. Complaints from Actors and Theater Managers

• Actors themselves protested that “I’ve been drawn ugly”
• Theater managers also complained that “our fans will leave”

3. Tsutaya’s Decision

• Receiving the poor sales at the end of 1794, Tsutaya stopped using Sharaku
• In the first month of 1795 he tried a subject shift with sumo prints, but this too failed
• Tsutaya cut Sharaku off and ended the contract

Whichever the theory, Tsutaya’s commercial judgment was the direct cause of Sharaku’s disappearance. Tsutaya himself died in 1797, and Sharaku’s true intent went with Tsutaya into the grave.

200 Years of Debate over His Identity

Sharaku’s real name, origins, and life were completely hidden from the time of publication. This is unusual. Very likely the publisher Tsutaya deliberately staged his anonymity.

Edo-Meiji-Era Speculations

• Kitagawa Utamaro theory — Utamaro’s alias?
• Katsushika Hokusai theory — an experiment by a young Hokusai?
• Maruyama Ōkyo theory, Tani Bunchō theory — various famous-artist theories

20th Century — Emergence of the “Saitō Jūrobei Theory”

Around 1910, art historians such as Nakamura Fusetsu proposed that “the Awa domain’s Noh actor Saitō Jūrobei” was Sharaku’s identity. Grounds:

• The Edo-era book Zōho Ukiyo-e Ruikō (1844) has the description “Tōshūsai Sharaku = Awa Noh actor Saitō Jūrobei”
• Record of an Awa-domain retainer living in Hatchōbori, Edo

But this description came 50 years after Sharaku, and lacked direct evidence. For over half a century, theories multiplied.

21st Century — Confirmation of the “Saitō Jūrobei Theory”

• 1997, a researcher at the Tokushima Prefectural Museum discovers the gravestone and past record of the Saitō family
• Around 2007, the birth and death dates (1763-1820) and profession (Noh actor) of Saitō Jūrobei as an Awa retainer are confirmed
• Currently, over 80% of scholars support the Saitō Jūrobei theory

So Sharaku’s identity is:

• A Noh actor retained by the Awa Tokushima domain
• Born 1763, died 1820 (57 years old)
• Painted ukiyo-e when he stayed in Edo on domain duty
• Main occupation Noh actor, painting as a side job

Being a Noh actor, he was acutely sensitive to “quirks of face and movement of body,” and this is the leading explanation for Sharaku’s unique power of observation.

Sharaku as Tsutaya’s Project

The current understanding is that Sharaku was a project set up by Tsutaya Jūzaburō:

• Discovered a Noh actor of the Awa domain (an amateur painter)
• Produced hype through the anonymous painter device
• Launched luxuriously with the top technique of black mica printing
• Put onto the market as a new style opposed to conventional actor prints

For Tsutaya, it was intended as a hype work in actor prints that would pair with Utamaro’s bijin-ga. But as a result it was a commercial failure, ending in ten months.

Sharaku’s Later Reputation — “The Reversal of Failure”

The reason Sharaku failed in his lifetime (non-beautification) is reversed 100 years later:

Discovery in Germany (1910)

• German art scholar Julius Kurth publishes Sharaku (1910)
• Extols Sharaku as “the Japanese Rembrandt, ranking with Velázquez as portrait painters”
• A Sharaku boom occurs in Europe

Reverse Import to Japan

• Taishō-Shōwa era, the Japanese art world also re-evaluates Sharaku
• 1930s-40s, Sharaku’s actor ōkubi-e are placed as the peak of ukiyo-e in textbooks
• For modern Japanese, the image “ukiyo-e = Sharaku, Utamaro, Hokusai, Hiroshige” becomes fixed

The lifetime failure of “a painter who does not beautify actors” is, 100 years later, evaluated as the forerunner of “modern realism” — a reversal drama in art history.

Sharaku’s Relation to Utamaro and Shunshō

The three simultaneous lineages of actor prints and bijin-ga:

Painter	Subject	Attitude
Katsukawa Shunshō	Actor prints	Nigao, but basically beautified
Tōshūsai Sharaku	Actor prints	Non-beautified, realism
Kitagawa Utamaro	Bijin-ga	Individuality within the type

It is very likely that Sharaku and Utamaro were planned as Tsutaya’s two wheels. In the contrast of Utamaro’s beautified bijin-ga and Sharaku’s non-beautified actor prints, Tsutaya tried to present to the Edo print market a new range of expression.

Sharaku Today

Sharaku’s works are today:

• Scattered across the Tokyo National Museum, the British Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston
• Few National Treasure / Important Cultural Property designations, but scholarly evaluation is extremely high
• Repeatedly taken as subjects of film, novel, and manga (film Sharaku by Shinoda Masahiro, 1995, etc.)
• Speculation over identity continues today (the Saitō Jūrobei theory is mainstream but not fully fixed)

From This Article to the Next

The 1790s of Utamaro and Sharaku were the peak of bijin-ga and actor prints, but entering the 1800s a new subject rises to prominence — “landscape painting.” At its center is Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849). In his youth Hokusai painted actor prints in the studio of Katsukawa Shunshō, and after passing 70 he produced Fugaku Sanjūrokkei — the peak of landscape painting. The next article traces Hokusai’s 90-year life and the story of the 46 pictures that depict Mount Fuji.