Akogi, from the series "Pictures of No Performances (Nogaku Zue)"

Akogi takes its name from Akogi-ga-ura, a stretch of coast along Ise Bay where, by ancient custom, all fishing was forbidden because the waters belonged to the Ise Shrine. The play, a phantom-play (mugen-nō) in the standard two-act form, tells of a poor fisherman who repeatedly violated the prohibition and was sunk into the sea with stones tied to his body; his suffering ghost rises from purgatory to lament his fate before a passing priest. Tsukioka Kōgyo's treatment of Akogi in Nōgaku Zue (Pictures of Noh Performances) captures the shite ghost at his most desolate. Published by Matsuki Heikichi circa 1898 and dated by the Art Institute of Chicago to the late 1890s, this Meiji-period color woodblock print belongs to Kōgyo's first systematic Noh series and shows the documentary fidelity that would later define his Nōga Taikan and Nōgaku Hyaku-ban. The print also reflects Kōgyo's training in the Tsukioka Yoshitoshi line, evident in the restrained palette and the precise handling of the figure against the bare cypress of the Noh stage.