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

Tsukioka Kogyo's Toboku, 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 depicts a scene from the noh play Toboku, named for the temple in Kyoto where the play unfolds. A travelling priest visits the temple grounds in spring and meets a woman who reveals herself to be the spirit of Izumi Shikibu, the Heian poetess whose verses on the plum tree at Toboku had been remembered for centuries. The play belongs to the third category women's plays and turns on the slow dance through which the spirit recites her poetry and the beauty of the flowering tree. Kogyo's noh-e composition presents the figure of the spirit 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. Kogyo had trained under Tsukioka Yoshitoshi in the strict figure drawing of the late [ukiyo-e](/glossary/ukiyo-e) tradition, and the discipline of that line carries through into his treatment of the poetic play. 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.