Yumi-ya Taro, from the series "Pictures of No Performances (Nogaku Zue)"

Yumi-ya Taro is a Meiji woodblock print by Tsukioka Kogyo, designed in 1893 for the series Pictures of No Performances (Nogaku Zue) and held in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. The sheet depicts a scene from the noh repertoire that combines martial iconography with the restrained formal vocabulary of the noh stage, and Kogyo's image balances those qualities with care. The figure occupies the center of the composition in elaborate stage costume, weapon and gesture rendered with the precise line work that Kogyo learned from Tsukioka Yoshitoshi and Ogata Gekko, while the surrounding pictorial space is held back so nothing distracts from the actor's stance. Yumi-ya Taro shows Kogyo's ability to honor the bare noh platform even when the underlying subject suggests action: the energy of the play is carried by posture and detail rather than by background drama. As part of Nogaku Zue, the print belongs to the foundational project of Meiji noh-e, a sustained documentary undertaking that treated the noh repertoire as a coherent subject for woodblock printmaking. Each sheet pairs scholarly attention to mask, robe, and prop with the technical resources of the best Tokyo print workshops of the period. The Art Institute of Chicago documents the impression at https://www.artic.edu/artworks/155332, placing it within a major museum holding of Kogyo's noh prints. For collectors, Yumi-ya Taro is a particularly satisfying example of how Tsukioka Kogyo turned a charged stage moment into a controlled, durable Meiji woodblock image.