Kisaburo-, Kuniyoshi and the “Living Doll”
100 Kisaburo-, Kuniyoshi and the “Living Doll” Kinoshita Naoyuki or many years now, I have been researching different aspects of nineteenth-century Japanese culture, making a conscious decision Fnot to distinguish between “fine art” and “popular culture.” I clearly remember the occasion some twenty years ago that prompted me to adopt this approach. It was my first encounter with the termiki-ningyo - (“liv- ing dolls”), as coined in Japanese. I had absolutely no idea what the phrase meant, nor even how to pronounce the Chinese characters. The majority of modern Japanese, unfamiliar with the term, end up pronouncing it nama- ningyo-. The impulse to pronounce the first character asnama derives from its meaning of something “vivid” or “fresh” (namanamashii). In the culinary idiom, the adjective brings to mind not grilled or boiled fish, but raw fish (sashimi) at the instant the dish is set down, or even the moments before- hand, as one’s mouth begins to water watching the fish being prepared. Now I have a little better understanding of what “living dolls” means. In the city of Edo (now Tokyo), a popular form of street entertainment was the re-creation of themes from legends or history with life-size, lifelike < Fig. 2. Matsumoto Kisaburo-. Tani- dolls––an inanimate counterpart to the European tableau vivant of the gumi Kannon. 1871/1898. Wood, with same period. It is difficult to prove exactly whatiki meant to Japanese peo- pigment, textile, glass, horsehair. 160 cm. ple in the nineteenth century, but the term iki-ningyo- was a neologism that Jo-kokuji, Kumamoto City, Kumamoto first appeared in connection with a public spectacle, known as amisemono , Prefecture mounted in Osaka in 1854.
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