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

Ninin Bakama, dated 1893 and issued in Tsukioka Kogyo's 'Pictures of No Performances (Nogaku Zue),' depicts a scene from a kyogen comic interlude in which two would-be sons-in-law arrive sharing a single pair of hakama trousers. The play is a staple of the Okura and Izumi schools of kyogen and provides welcome comic relief between the more solemn noh dramas. Tsukioka Kogyo (1869-1927) regularly extended his noh-e project to include kyogen, recognizing that the two forms were inseparable on any actual program. Here he captures the moment when the awkward division of a single garment between two men becomes visible to the audience. The artist's Meiji woodblock technique relies on clean outlines and a restrained palette to keep the comedy from tipping into caricature, preserving the dignity that kyogen actors themselves cultivate even at the funniest moments. The Art Institute of Chicago holds this impression among its noh-e holdings. Kogyo's documentary intent is evident in the careful rendering of the unusual costume arrangement, which a viewer unfamiliar with the play might otherwise misread. Sheets like this one show why Kogyo's series remained the standard reference for theater scholars well into the twentieth century, supplying both connoisseurs and practitioners with reliable visual records of plays whose performance traditions were still recovering from the disruption of the early Meiji years.