Narihiramochi, from the series "Fifty Kyogen Plays (Kyogen gojuban)"
- Date:
- 1927 (Published)
- Medium:
- Color woodblock print
- Source:
- Art Institute of Chicago
Tsukioka Kogyo's 1922 print "Narihiramochi," from his series "Fifty Kyogen Plays (Kyogen gojuban)," depicts a kyogen play whose title combines the name of the famous Heian poet Ariwara no Narihira with the word for rice cakes (mochi), pointing to the genre's characteristic mixing of high cultural reference and everyday subject matter. Kogyo's design places the figures in the patterned kamishimo and hakama that mark kyogen costume, with the round, prominent mochi acting both as prop and as the comic engine of the play. As a late work by the Meiji woodblock master, the sheet shows the artist applying to kyogen the same descriptive sobriety he had cultivated across his noh-e: clean contour lines, controlled application of color, and modest gradations used to differentiate textile from skin from prop. The series "Kyogen gojuban" was published in the Taisho period as a deliberate companion to Kogyo's noh series, completing his lifelong effort to picture the classical Japanese stage in full. The Art Institute of Chicago preserves the print within its broader collection of the artist's theater work, where it complements both his noh and his other kyogen designs. For collectors and students of Tsukioka Kogyo, "Narihiramochi" exemplifies how he balanced humor with documentary care, producing an image that records a specific kyogen play with the same craftsmanship and attention to performance practice that he had brought to the more elevated repertoire of noh, while remaining engaging on its own terms as a quiet, well-organized woodblock composition.
1898/1903
Color woodblock print; left sheet of oban diptych (right: 1943.833.42a)
1898/1903
Color woodblock print
1898
Color woodblock print
1898
Color woodblock print
Narihiramochi, from the series "Fifty Kyogen Plays (Kyogen gojuban)" was created by Tsukioka Kōgyo (月岡耕漁) in 1927 (Published).
Narihiramochi, from the series "Fifty Kyogen Plays (Kyogen gojuban)" depicts theater.
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