William Vollmann - Kissing the Mask - Beauty, Understatement and Femininity in Japanese Noh Theater, with Some Thoughts on Muses (Especially Helga Testorf), Transgender Women, ... Geishas, Valkyries and Venus Figurines

(After Kenneth Clark, pp. 75, 20–21.)

1. Female nude, “Esquiline Venus,” pre-classical Greek bronze (which now exists only in 2 marble copies)

Length of head = 1/7 height of body. Distance between breasts = 1 length of head = distance from lower breast to navel = distance from navel to division of legs

2. Female nude, classical [Greek] canon and its imitators until the first century

Distance between breasts = distance from lower breast to navel = distance from navel to division of legs

[p. 70, 2 wall paintings from Pompeii: “The distance from the breasts to the division of the legs is three units instead of two; the pelvis is wide, the thighs are absurdly short, and the whole body seems to have lost its structural system.”]

3. Female nude, Gothic ideal

Distance between breasts = distance from navel to division of legs 1= ½ distance from lower breast to navel

“The basic pattern of the female body is still an oval, surmounted by two spheres; but the oval has grown incredibly long, the spheres have grown distressingly small.”

Noh Play Groups, and Plays Mentioned

Noh dramas are divided into six groups, if we give “Okina” its due. Formally there are but five groups, and “Okina” is a peculiar subcategory of the first. Never mind that Zeami, the most important of Noh’s founders, specified only three categories. A full traditional program would include one play from each (usually excepting “Okina,” which is performed under special circumstances), and in the following order:

0. “Okina”

1. Waki Noh[god plays]:

Takasago

Seiobo

2. Shura Mono[ghost or warrior plays]

Atsumori

Ebira

Kanehira

Kiyotsune

3. Katsura Monoor Kazura-mono[wig plays or woman plays]

Ashikari

Eguchi

Izutsu

Matsukaze

Obasute

Sekidera Komachi

Sotoba Komachi

Yokihi

Yuki

Yuya

4. Kyojo Monoor Yonbamme-mono[madwoman plays; Tyler simply writes that this category cannot be described usefully in a few words; Keene remarks that this group paradoxically includes “realistic” plays; “Shunkan” offers crazed loneliness but no women at all appear in it]

Ataka

Dojoji

Hanjo

Kagekiyo

Kayoi Komachi

Kinuta

Miidera

Motomezuka

Nishikigi

Shunkan

Torioi-bune

Yoroboshi

5. Kichiku Mono[demon plays]

Aoi-no-Ue

Kasuga ryujin

Kokaji

Taniko

The current Noh corpus actually contains two hundred forty plays. Thus one source. Another says “only a few hundred.” Hundreds more are no longer performed. Waley claims that eight hundred plays from before 1868 survive. Mr. Jeff Clark writes me: “Actually thousands have been written…”

For definitions and descriptions of relevant Noh mask types, see chapter 3. 1

AtsuitaRobe made of a certain thick cloth; generally used for male Noh roles.

AwareThe beauty and harmony beyond direct expression which shines uniquely from various entities in their own occasion. In pre-Heian times it was simply joyous; then it became tinged with pathos; now it has connotations of wretchedness. The capacity for appreciating it is sometimes associated especially with the feminine.

Bijin-gaPortraits of beautiful women. Used to refer to ukiyo-e woodcuts and paintings. Hokusai and Kaigetsu are two masters of the form who are mentioned in this book.

BiwaA kind of lute. Lake Biwa has a biwa shape.

BushidoThe “way of the warrior,” exemplifying self-discipline, readiness for death, loyalty, chivalry and aesthetic spirituality.

DaimyoFeudal lord.

DanSection. Used not only for each of the five subdivisions of a Noh play, but also for the chapters of other works, for instance The Tales of Ise.

DharmaAn object of perception.

EnCharming, or visually beautiful. For example, the decorative virtue of a picture-scroll.

EriThe scarlet collar of a maiko.

Floating worldNot at all a uniquely Japanese conception. For instance, an ancient Egyptian love song advises: “Enjoy pleasant hours, and weary not thereof… Behold, no one departed will return again.”

FueA kind of Noh flute.

Fukinuke yataiRoofless interiors in the Genji Picture-Scroll illustrations and later pictures as well, such as the seventeenth-century woodblocks accompanying the books of Saikaku.

Geiko[ Kyoto term.]A full-fledged geisha; hence she has advanced beyond the maikostage. First used at the end of the seventeenth century by dancing girls who wished to distinguish themselves from prostitutes and therefore called themselves “gei-ko” (literally, “arts-child”).

Hako-iri-musumeGirl in a box, meaning a girl brought up with tender care. Although it has been said that Noh masks are meant to be used, not kept in boxes, this term was applied to a certain ko-omote carved by Deme Yasuhisa (a copy of a masterpiece by Tatsuemon).

HaoriA protective jacket worn over a kimono.

HayashiThe musicians on a Noh stage.

Hikime kagibana techniqueUsed in Genji Picture-Scrolls and elsewhere to portray faces with stylized understatement. Women’s faces are generally expressed as urizane-gata (winter melon shaped). Such stylized Genji figures are (at least to my mind) recapitulated in almost any of Hokusai’s calligraphic from-the-back sketches of a court beauty: a black hair-oval whose inky tail curves down toward us almost to the floor, an opened fan, subdivided into rectangles and peering over the left shoulder; the nearly semicircular arc of kimono sleeves and shoulders — an ovoid figure, in short, built out of arcs, of kimono-train.

HikizuriA maiko’s kimono.

Hon’iThe decorum appropriate to the expression of a given subject. For instance in a Heian court poem about the approach of the cherry blossom season, hon’i required the expression of a stylized impatience for the flowers to arrive.

HonzetsuThe source or “seed” of a Noh play (or of a poem).

IkiChic, dressy, sexy in the usual understated Japanese way. A band of red in a kimono-sleeve, or, if you like, the red sole of a black high-heeled shoe, are both iki .

KabukiA more flamboyant form of theater than Noh, using the rapid, agile odori dance rather than mai. The original meaning meant something like “beyond the pale,” or “avant-garde.” Some stories, such as “Dojoji,” are performed in both Noh and Kabuki modes.

KagaKanazawa-style kimono pattern, less “fancy” and more “realistic,” geishas say, than that of Kyoto.

Kara-oriSmall-sleeved brocaded Noh costumes.

KotsuzumiSmall hourglass Noh drum.

KyogenComic drama which is often played between intervals of Noh, and also presented in its own right. Sometimes in Noh a non-comic kyogen part is provided for an actor to explain to the audience the circumstances of the play. Kyogen masks can be more whimsical and fantastical than their Noh counterparts.

Maeshite Shiteof the first part, or act, of a Noh play.