Koi no Omoni, from the series "Pictures of No Performances (Nogaku Zue)"

Tsukioka Kogyo's Koi no Omoni, from the series Pictures of No Performances (Nogaku Zue), is a Meiji woodblock print dated 1893 and held in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. The print illustrates a moment from the noh play Koi no Omoni, which tells the story of an elderly gardener who falls in love with a court lady far above his station. Promised that his love will be granted if he can carry a heavy ornamental burden a hundred times around the garden, he attempts the task and dies in the effort, returning as a ghost to confront the lady with the weight of his grief. Kogyo's noh-e composition presents the principal performer in the costume of the gardener or his ghost, posed in the stillness that the noh dance requires, against the bare planks and painted pine of the noh stage. As Yoshitoshi's pupil, Kogyo brought the strict figure drawing of the late ukiyo-e tradition to his career as the leading visual recorder of the classical stage, and the careful contour and proportion here reflect that lineage. The Nogaku Zue series, issued across the 1890s, drew on direct observation of performances and on cooperation with the great schools then reconstructing the art under Meiji patronage. The carving renders the textile patterns with patient detail, and the printing keeps the muted palette appropriate to the recovered art. Documentation for this impression appears in the Art Institute of Chicago's online catalogue.