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

Tsukioka Kogyo's Kagekiyo, 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 Kagekiyo, in which the blind and exiled Taira warrior Akushichibyoe Kagekiyo, living in poverty at Hyuga after the fall of his clan, is visited by his daughter Hitomaru who has travelled from Kamakura in search of him. The play belongs to the fourth category miscellaneous plays and unfolds through the recognition between father and daughter, his recital of the great battle at Yashima, and her departure. Kogyo's noh-e composition presents Kagekiyo in the patterned costume and mask of the role, holding the still posture of the dance that recounts the past, against the bare planks and painted pine of the noh stage. As Yoshitoshi's pupil, Kogyo had been trained in the strict figure drawing of the late [ukiyo-e](/glossary/ukiyo-e) tradition, and his treatment of this great warrior subject carries the discipline of his teacher's line. The Nogaku Hyakuban project, projected as a survey of one hundred noh dramas, formed the basis for the more thorough Nogaku Zue series he would pursue across the rest of the 1890s. The carving translates the textile patterns into precise blocks of pigment, and the printing maintains the muted ground appropriate to performance documentation. Documentation for this impression appears in the Art Institute of Chicago's online catalogue.