View source for Art-name

*''Japanese'': 号 ''(gou)''

A ''gô'', or art-name, is a pseudonym taken on by someone when operating within a particular artistic sphere. In the [[Edo period]], as ''yûgei'' (the amateur practice of arts purely as a hobby) became more popular, the use of ''gô'' expanded dramatically, with commoners, samurai, and others alike taking on names they would then use in ''[[haikai]]'' or ''[[renga]]'' circles, and in other arts. Many artists today are known more famously by their art-name than by any more official (legal) name.

While in poetry circles and certain other arts people invented their own art-names, in some other arts, such as amateur ''[[joruri|jôruri]]'' chanting, masters bestowed names ending in ''tayû'' upon those students who had earned it.

Scholar [[Eiko Ikegami]] points to the use of art-names as an important facet of the functioning of ''yûgei'' spaces as outside of the formal hierarchies, and as freer spaces functioning akin to "enclave publics," comprising between them a "public sphere" in the Tokugawa period.

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==References==
*[[Eiko Ikegami]], ''Bonds of Civility'', Cambridge University Press (2005), 145-147.

[[Category:Culture]]