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

Dōjōji is one of the most virtuosic and theatrically demanding plays in the Noh repertoire, drawing on the legend of the woman Kiyohime whose unrequited love for the monk Anchin transformed her into a serpent that pursued him to the temple of Dōjōji in Kii Province, where he hid inside the great bronze bell — only for the serpent to coil around the bell and burn him alive within it. The Noh play, set generations later at the dedication of a new bell, features the famous moment in which the shite — a dancing woman who is the serpent's reincarnation — leaps into the falling bell as it is lowered onto the stage; behind the bell, the actor changes costume and mask, emerging in the second act as the serpent itself. Tsukioka Kōgyo's print in Nōgaku Hyaku-ban (One Hundred Noh Dramas) captures the iconic bell-leap moment that makes Dōjōji one of the most photographed plays in the modern era. Published by Matsuki Heikichi and held by the Art Institute of Chicago, this color woodblock print exemplifies the documentary fidelity of Tsukioka Kōgyo's Meiji- and Taishō-era Noh-print project.