Washington DC’s Sackler Gallery has an exhibit right now called “Staging the Supernatural: Ghosts and the Theater in Japanese Prints.” It’s a fascinating view of the ways different artists thought about monsters and ghosts as popular subjects of Japanese “Noh” Theater, a type of performance that moved from elite circles to the masses in the 1800s. The woodblock print you see here shows a maddened figure named Kasane, whose tragic story and horrifying consequences were performed in numerous renditions.
Set in the early 1600s, Kasane was a physically disfigured young woman who was heir to some rich estates. A male suitor marries Kasane for her wealth, later murdering her because of her physical unattractiveness. Later, the ghost of Kasane takes her vengeance by killing all the later wives of her murderer. There are an awful lot of female ghosts who have been done wrong by men in these plays.
This woodblock has a tenth-century poem written in the upper left-hand corner. The characters read in English: “to my eyes it is/ not clear that autumn has come/ but the chill whisper/ of the invisible wind/ startles me to awareness.” Likely, the wind was a stand-in for the ghost of Kasane.
Sources: Japan, Edo period, 1852, 9th month, by Utagawa Kunisada. (1786-1865). S2021.5.494. Sacker Gallery.
