Matsukaze, from the series "Pictures of No Performances (Nogaku Zue)"

Tsukioka Kogyo's Matsukaze, 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 scene from the noh play Matsukaze, one of the most celebrated works in the repertoire, in which two sister ghosts, Matsukaze and Murasame, recount their love for the exiled courtier Ariwara no Yukihira at the shore of Suma. The third category women's play unfolds through the slow dance of memory and longing at the salt-burner's hut beneath the pine, and its imagery has informed Japanese poetry and painting since the medieval period. Kogyo's noh-e composition presents the figure of Matsukaze in the patterned costume and mask of the role, holding the still posture of the dance 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 his treatment of this great play shows the discipline of that line applied to a subject of long-standing poetic resonance. The Nogaku Zue series, pursued 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 maintains the muted ground appropriate to performance documentation. The Art Institute of Chicago catalogues this impression.