Shakkyo, from the series "One Hundred No Dramas (Nogaku hyakuban)"

Shakkyō, drawn from Tsukioka Kōgyo's 1893 series One Hundred Noh Dramas (Nōgaku Hyakuban), depicts one of the most spectacular pieces in the Noh repertoire. The play is set in the Buddhist holy mountains of China where a stone bridge crosses a chasm, and culminates in the appearance of one or more lions, divine beasts that perform a vigorous dance among the peonies of the immortals. Kōgyo captures the lion-dance figure in full regalia: the long flowing mane of red or white hair, the elaborate brocade costume, and the powerful stance that the choreography demands. The print is one of the rare moments in his work where Noh's habitual restraint gives way to overt theatrical exuberance, and he meets the play on its own terms with bolder color and a more dynamic line. Within Meiji ukiyo-e, his Noh prints had carved out a distinctive niche that was both documentary and aesthetic, and Shakkyō shows the form at its most visually arresting, the kind of subject that could attract audiences who would not otherwise have collected Noh imagery. Kōgyo's training under Tsukioka Yoshitoshi and Ogata Gekkō equipped him for both the quiet plays and the loud ones, and Nōgaku Hyakuban surveyed the entire range. Material from the series would feed into his later Nōga Taikan. The Art Institute of Chicago retains this Shakkyō among its Meiji-era prints, a record of one of Noh's most beloved festival pieces as rendered in late nineteenth-century polychrome woodblock.