Atsumori, from the series "One Hundred No Dramas (Nogaku hyakuban)"

Atsumori is one of the great warrior plays (shura-mono) of the Noh repertoire, drawn from the Tale of the Heike. It depicts the encounter between the wandering priest Renshō — formerly the Genji warrior Kumagai no Naozane — and the ghost of the young Taira aristocrat Atsumori, whom Kumagai killed at the Battle of Ichi-no-tani. Atsumori was sixteen, a flute-player rather than a warrior by temperament, and Kumagai's grief over killing him drove him to take monastic vows. Kōgyo depicts the ghost-warrior shite in the elegant courtly armor that distinguishes Taira shades in Noh from Genji warriors, the figure paused at the moment of confronting his former killer. Published by Matsuki Heikichi as part of Nōgaku Hyaku-ban (One Hundred Noh Dramas), this color woodblock print is held by the Art Institute of Chicago and exemplifies the documentary precision that made Tsukioka Kōgyo the canonical Meiji-era illustrator of Noh.