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

Tsukioka Kogyo's Yugyo Yanagi, from the series Pictures of No Performances (Nogaku Zue), is a Meiji woodblock print dated 1893 and held in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. The print depicts a moment from the noh play Yugyo Yanagi, in which a wandering priest of the Yugyo school encounters the spirit of an aged willow tree along the road in northern Japan. The willow's spirit appears in human form, recites the poetic memory of its long life, and dances before vanishing into the dawn. Kogyo's noh-e composition isolates the principal performer in the costume of the willow spirit, holding the still pose of the dance against the bare planks and painted pine of the noh stage. Kogyo had trained under Tsukioka Yoshitoshi before establishing his career as the era's leading recorder of noh subjects, and his line discipline appears in the controlled contour of the figure and the patient carving of the brocade. The Nogaku Zue series, published across the 1890s, drew on Kogyo's direct observation of performances and on the cooperation of the great noh houses being reconstituted under Meiji patronage. The printing preserves the muted ground and selective applications of pigment that distinguish noh-e from the more saturated theatre prints of the period. Documentation for the Art Institute's impression of this design appears in the museum's online catalogue, which records the artist, series, and date.