Dojo-ji

Dōjō-ji is a Noh and Kabuki play centred on the temple of the same name in Kii Province, where the jilted woman Kiyohime pursues the priest Anchin, transforms into a serpent, and incinerates him beneath the temple bell where he has taken refuge. The dance performed by the female protagonist — a shirabyōshi who arrives at the temple's bell-rededication ceremony before revealing her demonic nature — is a sequence widely treated in Japanese theatrical imagery. Binnie's painting situates itself within a line of treatments by ukiyo-e and shin-hanga artists including Yoshitoshi and Kogyo. The subject demands handling of both the elegant feminine figure of the early scene and the vengeful transformation, drawing on the same psychological register that animates much of Binnie's bijin-ga and figure work in mokuhanga.