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

Tomoe is a Meiji woodblock print by Tsukioka Kogyo, published in 1893 in Pictures of No Performances (Nogaku Zue). The play centers on Tomoe Gozen, the celebrated female warrior who served Minamoto no Yoshinaka and refused to leave his side at the battle of Awazu; in the noh version she returns as a ghost to relive her last service to him. Kogyo, a pupil of Tsukioka Yoshitoshi and Ogata Gekko, brings the disciplined visual restraint of noh-e to this charged subject. The composition adheres to noh conventions: a low ground line, sparse setting and emphatic focus on the costumed figure, faithful to the bare cedar stage. The keyblock outline preserves the dignity of Tomoe's posture and the silhouette of her warrior robes, including the long naginata that identifies her role. Overprinted patterns and selective bokashi gradations build the textiles of her costume with the precision typical of late Meiji woodblock production, while a palette of muted indigo, gray and small accents of vermilion conveys the gravity of her grief without melodrama. Kogyo's documentary authority came from his unusual access to performances at the Hosho and Kanze schools during the Meiji noh revival. Pictures of No Performances, issued by Matsuki Heikichi, was his first dedicated noh series and the prelude to the monumental One Hundred No Dramas, which together remain the most comprehensive printed record of late nineteenth-century noh. The Art Institute of Chicago holds this impression among its substantial Kogyo holdings. Source: Art Institute of Chicago (https://www.artic.edu/artworks/154977).