Yu-ya, from the series "One Hundred No Dramas (Nogaku hyakuban)"

Tsukioka Kogyo's Yu-ya, 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 scene from the noh play Yuya, considered one of the finest works of the third category women's plays. Yuya, mistress of the warlord Taira no Munemori, longs to return home to nurse her ailing mother in Totomi but is compelled by Munemori to attend the cherry-viewing at Kiyomizu in Kyoto. At the height of the spring excursion a sudden shower scatters the petals and prompts a poem that moves Munemori to grant her leave. Kogyo's noh-e composition presents the figure of Yuya in the patterned costume and mask of the role, holding the still posture of the dance among the cherry blossoms, against the bare planks and painted pine of the noh stage. As Tsukioka Yoshitoshi's pupil, Kogyo had been trained 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 one of the most refined works in the noh repertoire. 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.