“Uchito-mode (The Pilgrimage to Ise)”, from the series “Noga taikan - Encyclopedia of Noh Plays”,

Tsukioka Kogyo

From the years 1925 to 1930, Japanese printmaker Tsukioka Kogyo published his final Noh theater series, a portfolio of 200 ukiyo-e color woodcuts illustrating popular Noh theater subjects, titled “Noga taikan - (Encyclopedia of Noh Theater)”. Kogyo died in 1927, and his student, Sofu, completed the last twenty-seven prints for the portfolio. In this image, Kogyo illustrates a scene in playwright Kongo Nakayori’s Uchito-mode - Pilgrimage to Ise, in which we see a part of the ceremony enacted upon an Imperial envoy’s arrival at the Great Shrines of Ise. A priest welcomes the visitor with a prayer and, after the kagura dance performed by a priestess (shown seated), he performs a shishi-mai, a lion dance. Kogyo’s use of an uncluttered background and delicate, richly hued central figures was a departure from his earlier, more detailed works. The energetic, simplified style of his late career made this series particularly unique.