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Staging the Supernatural: Ghosts and the Theater in Japanese Prints

Title: Staging the Supernatural: Ghosts and the Theater in Japanese Prints
Author List: Kit Brooks, Frank Feltens
Publisher: Smithsonian Books, National Museum of Asian Art
Publication Date: October 31, 2023
Publication Type: book
Format: print (softcover)
Pages: 168
Illustrations: 40
ISBN: 9781588347206
Collection Area(s): Japanese Art
Book cover with Japanese prints of two ghostly warriors over a dark background and the title
Description:

Meet cat demons, skeletal ghosts, and the nine-tailed kitsune in this brilliant and beautifully illustrated volume of ghost imagery in traditional Japanese theater.

Staging the Supernatural presents striking, eerie nineteenth-century woodblock prints from Japan that feature ghosts, demons, and other supernatural entities. The book digs into the country’s rich folkloric traditions and how they were brought to life on stage, with insightful essays that explore the depiction of spirits through the centuries, the relationship between printed images and cultural imagination, and how kabuki and Noh theater performances reflect Japan’s deep connection to and shifting notions of the supernatural.

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Related Exhibition

  • Two semi-transparent, spectral figures from Japanese prints, arranged side-by-side against a black background. The figure on the left stares at the viewer with wide eyes, an open mouth, and a large mane of hair that is standing on end. The figure on the right, his blue-and-white face scowling, wears elaborate armor and brandishes a weapon, while his right hand is outstretched.

    Staging the Supernatural: Ghosts and the Theater in Japanese Prints

    March 23–October 6, 2024

    Explore—if you dare—the roles that ghosts and spirits play in the retelling of Japanese legends and real events. During the Edo period (1603–1868), supernatural entities came to life especially in noh and kabuki theater performances. Staging the Supernatural brings together a collection of vibrant, colorful woodblock prints and illustrated books depicting the specters that haunt these two theatrical traditions.

    View Exhibition

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