Celebrating the Accession to the name of Arashi Rikaku II

This surimono print announces the name change of the Kabuki actor Komanosuke to Arashi Rikaku II (1812–1864); over his three decades of activity, he was to become one of the leading figures of the nineteenth-century Osaka stage. Accompanying an introduction by Rikaku are congratulatory poems by the great Osaka actors of the time.

The Kyoto-based artist Nagasawa Roshü marks this important occasion with several appropriate symbols. In the center of the print composition are the branches of the fruit-laden tachibana tree. This hardy, fast-growing citrus is well-known in court poetry of the Heian period. Also, it ripens in late autumn, the time of year when Rikaku received his new name. The elaborate brocade-silk canvas used for outdoor performance in the Heian-period court theater of Gagaku is another appropriate symbol because of the location of the naming ceremony in the ancient imperial capital of Kyoto. The two symbols also connect this contemporary event to older forms of entertainment that are rooted in Japan’s ancient courtly traditions of poetry and theater.