Kitsunebi (Fox Fire)

Born as the first son of a cotton textile merchant in Akashi, Hyōgo prefecture, Terashima Shimei was expected to succeed in the family business. However, fond of art and literature since childhood, Shimei spent his adolescent years composing poetry and writing stories for youth magazines while one of his sisters took over the business. In 1913, he decided to study painting and became a pupil of Kaburaki Kiyokata in Tokyo. Despite his late start at the age of twenty-one, Shimei rapidly developed as a promising painter in bijinga (paintings of beautiful women) and soon emerged as one of Kiyokata’s favorite pupils. Shimei’s career blossomed with the acceptance of his work titled Yūnagi (Evening Calm) at the 1927 Teiten exhibition, culminating later in the winning of the top prize consecutively in 1941 and 1942. Upon moving back to Hyōgo in 1936, Shimei turned his eye to the upper-class women of the Kansai area for his painting subjects. After the war, Shimei’s successful affiliation with the Nitten lasted for twenty-five years until his final submission in 1971. For his artistic accomplishments, Shimei was honored with numerous awards, including the Order of the Rising Sun, Fourth Class, in 1971. 

Today Shimei is best known for his tranquil images of contemporary women in a style characterized by lyrical colors and soft line, as seen in Early Spring in this collection. Kitsunebi is a theater-inspired work, rather unusual within Shimei’s oeuvre. Portrayed here is Princess Yaegaki, a heroin of Honchō nijūshikō (Twenty-Four Examples of Filial Piety in Japan), originally written for the bunraku puppet theater and adapted to a kabuki play in 1776. The story revolves around the two feuding samurai clans of sixteenth-century Japan: the Takeda and the Uesugi. Princess Yaegaki is a daughter in the Uesugi family, and her lover, Katsuyori, the son and heir of the rival Takeda. In a crucial part of the play, Katsuyori enters the Uesugi castle in disguise, aiming to recover a magnificent war helmet, his family’s heirloom, which has fallen into the hands of the Uesugi clan. However, Yaegaki’s father recognizes Katsuyori and plots his assassination. Upon learning of her lover’s danger, Yaegaki decides to warn him, but a frozen lake outside the castle prevents her from leaving. In response to her fervent prayer, the god of the Suwa Shrine sends a white fox to protect her. Yaegaki follows the magical fox-fires across the treacherous lake to save her lover from death, carrying the war helmet with her. Kitsunebi is the title of the climax scene in which Yaegaki dances furiously as she is possessed by the fox spirit. 

The famous image has been depicted in many ukiyoe prints, usually with Yaegaki in a bright red kimono holding the splendid horned helmet decorated with flowing white hair. In the actual play, however, a dancer in the role of Yaegaki is clothed in a red kimono and switches to white to indicate that she is now possessed by the fox spirit. Gazing up at the prized helmet, her loosely rendered kimono and obi provide a dramatic contrast to her delicate face, which conveys both the vulnerability and determination of a woman in love.

Shimei is said to have become increasingly interested in the kabuki style prevalent in Osaka and Kyoto after the 1950s. When he fell ill in 1971, he was in the audience at the New Kabuki Theater in Nanba, Osaka. With its vibrant depiction of power and emotion, Kitsunebi occupies a special place among post-war works by Shimei. 

Shimei’s works are in the collection of Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, and The Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, among others.

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