Monday, May 01, 2006

Japanese theatre

BrazellBrazellTraditional Japanese Theatre is remarkable, and would become an addiction if I lived there. I am not knowledgeable, but a recent post from Moving Mountain soliciting information about a carved figure, sent me looking through what I had. My main text is "Traditional Japanese Theater: an Anthology of Plays" edited by Karen Brazell (Columbia University Press, 1998). The statue that Moving Mountain shows has wild hair, and if you look closely, long braids on either side of the (fearsome) face. The stance is solid, perhaps seated. At first I thought it was a Thunder God (an example is the first picture above). But the figurine did not have any headgear. The lower picture is of the Shite from the Noh play Yamamba (a demon play, attributed to Zeami). No headgear, and the Shite is seated (on a round lacquer box): the stance is very similar to the carved figure. As an aside, the gesture with the closed fan emphasises that grace descends "even to the center of the earth" (Brazell, p.221).
I don't think these necessarily provide the answer, and Johnny Newt's comment is likely correct, but I am grateful for the excuse to revisit something I love!

1 comment:

Mugo said...

Thanks Walter. These photographs, particularly the second one, seem to be the closest likeness to my little statue.