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

Tsukioka Kogyo's Kogo, 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 Kogo, which dramatises the story of Lady Kogo, a favourite of the emperor Takakura, who fled the imperial city in fear of the Taira and took refuge near Saga, where she played her koto under the autumn moon. The emperor's emissary, the musician Nakakuni, follows the sound of the instrument through the bamboo and brings her message of recall. Kogyo's noh-e composition presents the figure of Kogo in the patterned costume and mask of the role, holding the still posture of the dance that recalls the playing of the koto, against the bare planks and painted pine of the noh stage. As Tsukioka Yoshitoshi's pupil, Kogyo had been trained in the strict figure drawing of the late ukiyo-e tradition, and the discipline of that line carries through into his treatment of this lyric play. 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.