Yo-uchi Soga, from the series "Pictures of No Performances (Nogaku Zue)"

Yo-uchi Soga (Night Attack of the Soga Brothers) is a Meiji woodblock print by Tsukioka Kogyo, published in 1893 in Pictures of No Performances (Nogaku Zue). The play dramatizes the celebrated revenge of the Soga brothers, Juro and Goro, who carried out a long-planned strike against their father's killer at a hunting camp arranged by the shogun Minamoto no Yoritomo in 1193. Kogyo, a pupil of Tsukioka Yoshitoshi and Ogata Gekko, brings the disciplined visual restraint of noh-e to this charged narrative. The composition retains the conventions of the noh stage - low ground line, sparse setting, emphatic concentration on the costumed figure - while the keyblock outline preserves the angular posture and silhouette of armor or traveling robe associated with the warrior role. Overprinted lacing and brocade patterns recreate the textiles of the costume with the precision typical of late Meiji woodblock production. Selective bokashi gradations and a palette of muted indigo, earth tones and small accents of vermilion convey the gravity of the subject without theatrical excess. Kogyo's authority on noh-e came from direct access to performances at the Hosho and Kanze schools during the Meiji revival of noh after the Restoration. Pictures of No Performances, issued by Matsuki Heikichi, was the prelude to his monumental One Hundred No Dramas and established the visual conventions he would refine for two decades. The Art Institute of Chicago holds this impression as part of its broader Kogyo holdings. Source: Art Institute of Chicago (https://www.artic.edu/artworks/155003).