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

Chikubushima takes its name from the small sacred island in Lake Biwa, traditionally associated with the deity Benzaiten and a venerable shrine to her. The play, in the kami-mono (god-play) category, celebrates the divine guardianship of the island; it culminates in a dance by Benzaiten (or her dragon-king companion) atop the lake. Tsukioka Kōgyo's print in Nōgaku Hyaku-ban (One Hundred Noh Dramas) captures the dance with the documentary care that distinguishes the entire series. Published by Matsuki Heikichi and held by the Art Institute of Chicago, this color woodblock print is dated by the museum to the 1898-1903 phase of the Nōgaku Hyaku-ban project. Like the rest of the series, the sheet exemplifies Tsukioka Kōgyo's encyclopedic ambition: to document the full Noh repertoire — including the kami-mono that traditionally open a full Noh program — with the visual precision of a Meiji-era archivist working in the late ukiyo-e tradition inherited from Tsukioka Yoshitoshi.