KUNIYOSHI • Shizuka Gozen dances before Yoritomo at Tsurugaoka Hachiman Shrine – Edo-period ōban - Japan - Edo Period (1600-1868)

** A complete Edo-period triptych by Utagawa Kuniyoshi showing one of the best-known moments of the Genpei legend: the shirabyōshi dancer Shizuka Gozen, captured lover of Minamoto no Yoshitsune, ordered to dance before his brother and enemy, the shōgun Minamoto no Yoritomo, at Tsurugaoka Hachiman Shrine in Kamakura. Kuniyoshi is best known for violent battle scenes; this is a quieter court subject from the same Genpei story cycle, with all three sheets present. **
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Artist: Utagawa Kuniyoshi (歌川国芳), 1797–1861
Title: Yoritomo-kō Tsurugaoka no shinzen ni oite Shizuka Gozen no mai o mitamau zu (頼朝公鶴ヶ岡乃神前において静御前の舞を見給う図) – "Lord Yoritomo watching Shizuka Gozen dance before the shrine at Tsurugaoka"
Subject: Shizuka Gozen's dance at Tsurugaoka Hachiman Shrine, Kamakura, 1186

Date: Late Edo period, c. 1840s
Publisher: Kawaguchiya Chōzō (河長)
Technique: Woodblock print (mokuhanga), nishiki-e (polychrome)
Format: Ōban tate-e triptych (三枚続), three sheets, each approx. 37*25cm
Signature: Ichiyūsai Kuniyoshi ga (一勇斎国芳画) on each sheet
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CONDITION

Impression & Colours: The colours are still fairly well preserved and the impression reads well across the three sheets.

Paper: The paper is firm and supple, with some soiling and toning consistent with age. Minor scuffs and wear on the margins. A good example of this design.
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The Story: A Dance of Defiance in Kamakura

After the Genpei War ended in 1185, Minamoto no Yoshitsune, the general who had won it, fell out with his older brother Yoritomo, the new military ruler of Japan. Yoshitsune fled Kyoto, and his lover Shizuka Gozen, the most famous shirabyōshi (court dancer) of her day, was left behind at Mount Yoshino. She was captured and sent to Kamakura with her mother, Iso no Zenji, early in 1186. There she was questioned about Yoshitsune's whereabouts and refused to give him up.

Yoritomo and his wife Hōjō Masako wanted to see the dancer whose skill was famous in the capital, and ordered her to perform. Shizuka refused for weeks. On the 8th day of the 4th month of 1186 she finally agreed, as an offering to the god Hachiman, and danced in the corridor of the Wakamiya shrine at Tsurugaoka. The shogunate's own chronicle, the Azuma Kagami, records that Kudō Suketsune played the drum and Hatakeyama Shigetada the cymbals.

Instead of songs praising the new regime, Shizuka sang of her longing for Yoshitsune, the fugitive Yoritomo was hunting:

Yoshino-yama mine no shirayuki fumiwakete / iri ni shi hito no ato zo koishiki
"Treading through the white snow on the peaks of Mount Yoshino, the one who went deep into the mountains — how I long for the path he left."

Yoritomo was furious. Masako calmed him by saying that in Shizuka's place she would have sung the same. The Azuma Kagami praises the performance as a magnificent sight that moved everyone present. The end of the story is bitter: Shizuka was pregnant with Yoshitsune's child, and Yoritomo ordered that a boy would be killed. She gave birth to a son that summer, and the child was taken from her.

The episode was retold in the Gikeiki, in Noh and kabuki, and in the dance piece Shizu no Odamaki. It was painted by ukiyo-e artists from Utamaro in the 18th century to Toshikata, Chikanobu and Nobukazu in the Meiji era.