# The Actor Ichikawa Danjuro IV in a "Shibaraku" Role, Possibly from the Play Ima o Sakari Suehiro Genji (The Genji Clan Now at Its Zenith), Performed at the Nakamura Theater from the First Day of the Eleventh Month, 1768, in Soga Shohaku's contemporaries

Katsukawa Shunshō designed this in about 1768, aged about 37. It is now at the Art Institute of Chicago.

Our note:

> Ichikawa Danjūrō IV appears in Shibaraku, the showpiece of his family’s aragoto, or ‘rough style’, of acting: a superhuman hero in an enormous costume who halts the villains with a thunderous cry. The scene was traditionally inserted into the season-opening programmes staged by the Edo theatres in the eleventh month.

[Read the full label](https://www.ochreeditions.com/art/the-actor-ichikawa-danjuro-iv-in-a-shibaraku-role-possibly-f-aic-21839#about-work)

## The work

- Date: c. 1768
- Medium: Color woodblock print; oban
- Dimensions: 38.3 × 26 cm (15 1/8 × 10 1/4 in.)
- Type: Print
- Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago, 1925.2365
- Licence: CC0 1.0

## The artist

[Katsukawa Shunshō](https://www.ochreeditions.com/artists/katsukawa-shunsho), Japanese, 1726–1792

Shunshō founded the Katsukawa school and changed the way kabuki actors were portrayed, giving them recognisable individual features rather than standard types. From the late 1760s his actor designs, often in the narrow hosoban format, dominated the field.

6 works in the collection.

## Walk on

- [More by Katsukawa Shunshō](https://www.ochreeditions.com/galleries/artist/katsukawa-shunsho?hang=748) (6 works)
- [More Ukiyo-e](https://www.ochreeditions.com/galleries/style/ukiyo-e?hang=748) (172 works)
- [18th-century Japan](https://www.ochreeditions.com/galleries/era/18-japan?hang=748) (92 works)

## Get it

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- [The work's page](https://www.ochreeditions.com/art/the-actor-ichikawa-danjuro-iv-in-a-shibaraku-role-possibly-f-aic-21839)