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

Tsukioka Kogyo's Hanjo, from the series One Hundred No Dramas (Nogaku hyakuban), is a Meiji woodblock print dated 1893 and held in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. The print illustrates a scene from the noh play Hanjo, which adapts the Chinese tale of Lady Ban into a Japanese setting of love and longing. The protagonist Hanago has been driven mad by her separation from her lover Yoshida, and the play unfolds as a meditation on memory and the painted fan they exchanged. Kogyo's noh-e composition presents the figure of Hanago in the patterned costume and mask of the role, holding the still posture that marks the moment of her recognition. As a pupil of Tsukioka Yoshitoshi, Kogyo had been trained in the precise figure drawing of the late [ukiyo-e](/glossary/ukiyo-e) tradition, and the discipline of that line carries through into his sustained career as the leading visual recorder of the classical stage. The Nogaku Hyakuban series, projected as a survey of one hundred noh dramas, became the foundation on which his subsequent and more thorough Nogaku Zue project would be built. The carving here translates the textile patterns of the costume into precise blocks of pigment, and the printing preserves the matte ground appropriate to performance documentation. Catalogue documentation for this impression appears in the Art Institute of Chicago's online resources.