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Akushichibyōe Kagekiyo Sticker
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In an effort to maximise our design range, avoid over-production and waste, and offer you a competitive price, all of our products are made to order.
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Due to the custom nature of our items, we cannot accept returns or exchanges for wrong size, colour, or change of mind, however if your item arrives damaged or contains an error we will gladly replace it.
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Artwork Details
The warrior who danced for his captors. Kagekiyo earned his nickname "Aku" - evil - through sheer ferocity on the battlefield. A Taira clan samurai who fought with legendary determination during the Genpei War, he refused to surrender even after his side fell. When the Minamoto finally captured him, they threw him in prison. But in this moment from Kuniyoshi's triptych, Kagekiyo stands before the barred gate of his cell, performing a dance to the music of koto and kokyū while his enemies watch in silence.
That massive patterned costume transforms him into something beyond a mere prisoner - the geometric designs and bold colors make him monumental, theatrical, larger than defeat itself. His face is painted in fierce red and white kumadori, his flared wig dramatic and defiant. This is captivity as performance. This is a man who lost the war but refuses to disappear quietly, who commands the stage even from behind bars. Danjūrō VIII inhabited this role with full aragoto power - turning imprisonment into spectacle, defeat into legend.
The actor Ichikawa Danjūrō VIII (八代目市川團十郎) as Akushichibyōe Kagekiyo (悪七兵衛景清), from the kabuki production Ichi-no-tani musha-e no iezuto (一谷武者画土産, A Warrior's Picture Book from Ichi-no-tani) 1849.
Utagawa Kuniyoshi (歌川国芳, 1798-1861)
