Hajitomi

Hajitomi (半蔀, Half-Shutter) is a Noh play in which a traveling monk encounters the spirit of Lady Yugao from The Tale of Genji. The half-lattice shutter that gives the play its title functions as the central stage device — the shite (principal performer) appears framed within it, surrounded by yugao (moonflower) vines. Gyokusei's print belongs to her Noh series published by Watanabe Shozaburo, the project that established her as a shin-hanga voice working in the same theatrical territory as her father Tsukioka Kogyo's Hyakuban (Pictures of One Hundred Noh Plays). The composition translates the staged tableau into print form: the shite in costume, likely wearing a ko-omote mask of a young woman, the geometry of the wooden shutter set against climbing vines and white moonflower blossoms. Color is held in the restrained register consistent with Noh's visual conventions, with bokashi handling background depth.