| ''Nigao-e'' were a sub-genre of [[Edo period]] ''[[ukiyo-e]]'' woodblock printed portraits which showed recognizable facial likenesses of the people depicted. They were in this respect a successor to the ''[[nise-e]]'' paintings of the [[Kamakura period]], which also aimed to recreate facial likeness. | | ''Nigao-e'' were a sub-genre of [[Edo period]] ''[[ukiyo-e]]'' woodblock printed portraits which showed recognizable facial likenesses of the people depicted. They were in this respect a successor to the ''[[nise-e]]'' paintings of the [[Kamakura period]], which also aimed to recreate facial likeness. |
− | The first datable ''nigao-e'' is said to have been a [[1764]] double portrait of the [[kabuki]] actors [[Ichikawa Raizo I|Ichikawa Raizô I]] and [[Otani Hiroemon]], by ''ukiyo-e'' artist [[Katsukawa Shunsho|Katsukawa Shunshô]]. His ''Yakusha natsu no fuji'', a book of actor portraits published in [[1780]], is cited as an important example of the continuation of this trend. | + | The first datable ''nigao-e'' is said to have been a [[1764]] double portrait of the [[kabuki]] actors [[Ichikawa Raizo I|Ichikawa Raizô I]] and [[Otani Hiroemon]], by ''ukiyo-e'' artist [[Katsukawa Shunsho|Katsukawa Shunshô]]. His ''Yakusha natsu no fuji'', a book of actor portraits published in [[1780]], is cited as an important example of the continuation of this trend. [[Torii Kiyoshige]] (fl. c. 1751-1772) is also credited with painting some of the earliest ''nigao-e'', while [[Kamigata]] artist [[Ryukosai|Ryûkôsai Jokei]] was one of the first to depict ''[[onnagata]]'' not as women, but as men (with recognizably masculine facial features) dressed as women.<ref>Joshua Mostow, "Wakashu as a Third Gender and Gender Ambiguity through the Edo Period," in Mostow and Asato Ikeda (eds.), ''A Third Gender'', Royal Ontario Museum (2016), 34.</ref> |
| *Timon Screech, ''Obtaining Images'', University of Hawaii Press (2012), 195. | | *Timon Screech, ''Obtaining Images'', University of Hawaii Press (2012), 195. |