Aya no Tsuzumi, from the series "Pictures of No Performances (Nogaku Zue)"

Tsukioka Kōgyo's Aya no Tsuzumi (The Damask Drum) is one of the more emotionally charged sheets in his Nōgaku Zue (Pictures of Noh Performances), the first of his three great Noh-print series and the earliest systematic attempt by any ukiyo-e artist to document the full Noh repertoire. The play, attributed to Zeami, tells the story of an aging palace gardener at the Kinomaru imperial garden who falls hopelessly in love with a noblewoman and is cruelly told that if he can sound a drum she has hung on a laurel tree, his love will be returned. The drum is wrapped in damask silk and produces no sound; the gardener drowns himself in despair, then returns as a vengeful ghost in the play's second act. Kōgyo captures the moment of the shite's ghostly transformation with characteristic restraint, the figure rendered in the frozen mask-stillness that defines Noh performance rather than the exaggerated expression of Kabuki imagery. Published circa 1898 by Matsuki Heikichi, this Meiji-period color woodblock print belongs to the Art Institute of Chicago's holdings of Kōgyo's Noh work and reflects the artist's documentary precision in depicting costume, mask, and stage property.