Kogyo Tsukioka, Higaki, Pictures of Noh

Tsukioka Kogyo was a Japanese artist of the Meiji period. He was a student and adopted son of Tsukioka Yoshitoshi, and also studied with Ogata Gekko. For most of his career Kogyo made pictures of Japanese noh theatre, either as large-scale paintings or coloured woodblock prints. Many of the latter were published in series and sold as multi-volume sets. Some sets have been preserved as albums in their original bindings, including accordion-style bindings known as orihon.

Unlike other ukiyo-e artists of the period his work is almost painterly in style with delicate shading, fine lines and gold and silver metallic pigment to highlight details on the theatrical costumes. The lightness of the designs would have taken extreme skill to produce and are the sign of highly skilled engravers and printers.