Run early Feb 

‘CHUSHINGURA’ TALE WILL BE REVISITED AT ALLENTOWN ART MUSEUM FEB. 11

AVV 12-18 #681303

ALLENTOWN, PENN. — “Chushingura: Loyalty and Revenge in Eighteenth Century Japan” will be on view February 11–May 27 at the Allentown Art Museum’s Payne Hurd Gallery.

“Chushingura (Tale of the Loyal Retainers),” the tale of 47 masterless samurai (ronin), is known by virtually every Japanese and is rooted in actual history. Many of the most famous Japanese wood-block artists from the Eighteenth to the Twentieth Centuries have depicted this famous event, and the Allentown Art Museum has many well-known wood-block prints in its collection, including a complete set of full-figure images of each ronin by Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1797–1861).

This exhibition presents a selection of Chushingura prints from the museum’s collection and includes many of the Kuniyoshi prints as well as a rare pentatypch by Utagawa Toyokuni (1769–1825) that depicts all 11 acts of the Kabuki play Kanadehon Chushingura (Treasury of Loyal Retainers) organized as one long scroll-like picture. Other prints on display include a shin-hanga (woodblock print done in the “new” style) of “Leavetaking,” by Sadanobu Hasagawa III (1881–1963), which shows an idealized version of the ronin’s leader taking leave of his master’s wife as he prepares to join the other retainers for the planned revenge; and “Chushingura, Act XI,” by Shigemasa Kitao (1739–1819), a dramatic scene of the invasion of the enemy’s household.

The Allentown Art Museum is at 31 North Fifth Street. For more information, www.allentownartmuseum.org, or 610-432-4333, extension 10.