Rasho-mon, from the series "One Hundred No Dramas (Nogaku hyakuban)"

Tsukioka Kogyo's Rasho-mon, 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 moment from the noh play Rashomon, which dramatises an episode from the legendary career of the Heian warrior Watanabe no Tsuna, retainer of Minamoto no Yorimitsu. Tsuna keeps a watch at the great gate of Rashomon in Kyoto, where a demon is said to dwell, and in a fierce encounter cuts off the demon's arm. The play belongs to the fifth category demon plays and is performed with the dramatic energy appropriate to the climactic struggle. Kogyo's noh-e composition presents the demon, or Tsuna, in the patterned costume and mask of the role, holding the still posture of the moment of the fight, against the bare planks and painted pine of the noh stage. Kogyo had trained under Tsukioka Yoshitoshi in the strict figure drawing of the late ukiyo-e tradition, and the discipline of that line carries through into his treatment of this dramatic subject. 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.