Tsukioka Kōgyo

BIOGRAPHY

While much has been written about Kōgyo's Noh prints, little has been written about his life. The English-language literature reports that he was born Hanyū Bennosuke, the son of innkeepers in Nihonbashi, Tokyo. When he was fifteen years old, his mother married Tsukioka Yoshitoshi (1839-1892), a distinguished master of ukiyo-e printmaking. From his famous stepfather, the young Kōgyo received some of his earliest training in printmaking and painting. He received the name Toshihisa 年久 (the toshi 年 taken from his stepfather’s name), a name that was to appear on some of his war triptychs. Although their styles and subject matter were different, Kōgyo acquired both a knowledge of print design and an enthusiasm for Noh theater from his stepfather, who had a lifelong fascination with Noh.

Kōgyo was twenty-three when Yoshitoshi died. His mother then succeeded his stepfather as head of the Tsukioka family and its workshop until her death in 1911. Kōgyo at this time published his art under the name of his mother's family, Sakamaki 坂巻. He later became the student of another well-known print artist of the Meiji period (1868-1912), Ogata Gekkō (1859-1920).  Following Japanese tradition, Gekkō gave his student a new name, "Kōgyo." Consequently, from the mid-1890s on, he was known as Sakamaki Kōgyo and, after his 1911 assumption of leadership of the Tsukioka school, as Tsukioka Kōgyo. He also used the artist names (gō) Kōhan 湖畔 (appearing on his small landscape prints). Gyo 漁, Rekizan 歴山 and Nenkyu. It is also reported that Kōgyo was a pupil of Matsumoto Fuko (1840-1923), a Japanese-style painter.1 

Kōgyo had a least one child, a daughter Fumio who became the artist Tsukioka Gyokusei (1908-1994), who took over the Tsukioka school after Kōgyo's death in 1927. She described her father's working habits as follows:

I remember beginning at the age of fifteen going to the Kanze Noh stage at Omigari in Tokyo with my father.  Before the play began, father would sketch the stage, beginning with the hashigakari.  People around him were amazed at the speed and facility with which he drew…

When father was absorbed with a painting, he worked with a fierce look on his face, and I knew not to enter his studio.2

1 A Dictionary of Japanese Artists: Painting, Sculpture, Ceramics, Prints, Lacquer, Laurance P. Roberts, Weatherhill, 1976, p. 189.

2 The Prints of Tsukioka Kōgyo, a brochure from the exhibition of the same name held at the Frick Art Museum February 3 - April 7, 2007

Noh Print Series

Kōgyo created three major series of prints related to the Noh theater, all published by Matsuki Heikichi 松木平吉, proprietor of Daikokuya 大黒屋. 

The first series, begun in 1897 and completed in 1902, Nōgakuzue (Illustrations of Noh), consists of 261 prints all in the horizontal oban format. The second series, Nōgaku hyakuban (One Hundred Prints of the Noh), consists of 120 prints, almost all in the vertical oban format. The last series, Nōga taikan (A Great Collection of Noh Pictures), featuring 200 prints, was completed by his student Matsuno Sōfū (1899-1963) after Kogyo's death in 1927 and are all in the horizontal ōban format.

Examples of artist seals used in this series: 

Issued as an Album? (The question is now answered!)

Many of the prints seen from this series, including a number in this collection, have a heavy backing and are partially trimmed, indicative of once being mounted in an album. It is unknown whether these albums were created by collectors or the publisher. My guess is that the publisher did create albums for this series and may have issued separate index sheets, such as the print IHL Cat. #246 in this collection, for these albums.

Claus-Peter Schultz, who has done extensive research on Tsukioka Kōgyo and his work, kindly provided the following information to me:

"With regard to your question on the albums: the albums have been distributed once the series has been completed (i.e. after September 1926). The order in the albums does not comply with the order of the 1st publishing (i.e. the distribution in 40 envelopes of three sheets each). Your contents sheet (cat.#246) belongs to volume 1."

Examples of seals used in this series:

Other Work

In addition to hundreds of Noh-subject prints, Kōgyo created a number of kacho-e (prints of birds and flowers), many in the shikishiban format as shown on the left, a few small-format landscape prints, several senso-e (war prints) of the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905) and a few prints depicting the modernization of Japan, such as the print Congratulations and Long Life Prince Yoshihito and Princess Sadako in this collection. He produced over three dozen Noh paintings and over one hundred fifty illustrations of Noh and non-Noh illustrations for Japan's first graphic magazine, Fūzoku gahō. He also produced small postcard prints for the Noh publishing house, Wan'ya. 

Abstract of Paper Presented at the 2009 Toshiba International Foundation Symposium "Japan's Cultural Imagination and Its Contribution to the World"

Tsukioka Kõgyo and the Popularization of Noh in Japan and Abroad, (1890-1927)

by Richard J. Smethurst

Professor, History, University of Pittsburgh

The classical noh theatre, intimately connected with the late feudal order of the Edo period, fell on hard times after the Meiji Restoration in 1868. Actors who had received salaries from the shogun and his lesser lords to serve as in-house performers, lost their official patronage, and had to fend for themselves in what one might call a "free-market" situation. Several actors, most notably Umewaka Minoru, stepped into the breach and found support from members of the royal family, nobility, and new bourgeoisie, who wanted to show that they were properly cultured. By the end of the century noh had begun to recover its position as Japan's premier classical theatre.

Foreigners also helped out. Prominent foreign teachers in Japan, most notably Ernest Fenollosa and Edward Morse, famous respectively for bringing Japanese art to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and the Peabody Essex Museum, studied with Umewaka, and gave noh a Western seal of approval as Japan's foremost classical theatre. Fenollosa made, but never published, noh translations, at least until Ezra Pound reworked them and put out, Noh or Accomplishment, a book of translations, in 1917. Arthur Waley, published his, The Nô Plays of Japan, four years later in 1921. But two books predated the works of these two famous poets, Osman Edward's Japanese Plays and Playfellows, a history of Japanese traditional theatre, in 1901, and Marie C. Stopes' Plays of Old Japan: The Nô, in 1913. Both Edward's and Stopes' books included illustrations by the ukiyoe artist, Tsukioka Kôgyo (1869-1927).

As noh was beginning its comeback in the late nineteenth century, Kôgyo undertook to produce three major sets of woodblock prints, five dozen paintings, and hundreds of magazine illustrations of noh performances. His works received widespread recognition - the empress even purchased several of his paintings. All were published with bilingual envelopes and explanations, indicating that his audience was foreign as well as Japanese. The Prague National Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the University of California at Berkeley, Scripps College in Pomona, the Library of Congress, the Frick Fine Arts Library of the University of Pittsburgh, and Richard and Mae Smethurst, own complete or partial sets of Kôgyo's three major sets of prints. 

Exhibitions

Over the past tenty years there has been renewed interest in Kōgyo's work, as evidenced by exhibitions of his work, articles about his prints on Noh theater and the scholarly work of historian Richard J. Smethurst (University of Pittsburgh). In addition, substantial numbers of his Noh-subject prints have been offered for sale by various galleries and auction houses. 

BY MARTIN LAFLAMME CONTRIBUTING WRITER - Feb 19, 2022

Fortune was unfair to Tsukioka Kogyo. A gifted draftsman with an acute sense of the expressive power of color, he had talent galore. Had he been active in the first half of the 19th century, when ukiyo-e enjoyed its heyday, his work might have gained broad recognition. Alas, Kogyo was born late, in 1869, when the art form was already in decline. By the time he entered his artistic maturity in the 1890s, it was on its last legs. Today, his name is largely forgotten.

This was no fault of his own. For much of the Edo Period (1603-1868), woodblock prints had enjoyed unprecedented popularity. They were used to reproduce text and images for books, commercial advertising, playing cards, votive images and even board games. By pushing the technology to its limits, the most accomplished craftsmen were also able to produce spectacular single-sheet polychrome prints that were admired for their artistic qualities and avidly collected by enthusiasts.

Things began to change in the late-1850s when Japan opened its borders and gained access to Western technology. New media — photography, oil painting, magazines and newspapers — flooded in and gradually pushed aside older forms such as woodcuts. To succeed, budding artists like Kogyo needed a niche.

Kogyo chose noh. For three decades, from 1897 until his death in 1927, he produced the most comprehensive visual body of work dedicated to Japan's oldest living form of theater. Such prints had been made before, but they were rare and often sold privately. By comparison, Kogyo designed at least 580 images that, by some estimates, amount to as much as 75% of his entire print production. In either quality or quantity, his output in the noh genre, which also includes paintings, is unparalleled.

However, few people outside of noh circles are familiar with his work, says Rei Yamauchi, a curator at the Nakagawa-machi Bato Hiroshige Museum of Art, which is located in Nasu, Tochigi Prefecture. This is partly why the museum decided to present, for the first time, all 68 prints of its Kogyo collection. This is the first such exhibition in Japan in years, perhaps even in more than a decade. The show runs until March 27.

With 45 pieces on display, the focus of the exhibition falls squarely on “One Hundred Noh Plays,” a series that Kogyo and his publisher began releasing a century ago this year. It is also considered his best and most representative. Particularly remarkable is the manner in which brush strokes are transferred onto print to preserve a painterly feel, something that is highly unusual in ukiyo-e. Dyes are delicately applied throughout, often evoking the evanescence of watercolor. In some places, they suggest shadows or foliage. In others, such as in the disheveled hair of a waki or shite, two types of noh actors, they indicate envy or fury.

The visual impact is memorable, but Kogyo's talent goes beyond aesthetic considerations. J. Thomas Rimer, an emeritus professor of Japanese literature at the University of Pittsburgh, spent much of his career studying noh. Over email, he suggests that a large part of Kogyo's genius resided in his "ability to evoke the emotion found in the text of a particular play, through his poetic rendering of a central image chosen in order to visualize a range of emotions embedded in the play as a whole." Kogyo could wield brush and pathos with equal dexterity.

Scholars are still unable to fully explain how and why Kogyo developed his near obsessive passion for noh. He left neither diary nor letters explaining his motives, so we are left with conjectures. But one possibility is intriguing — that Kogyo, concerned about the long-term survival of this form of theater, was trying to raise its profile and expand its appeal. The theory holds water: In the decades that followed the Meiji Restoration in 1868, it almost disappeared.

From its popular roots in the 14th century, noh evolved under the Tokugawa shogunate into a theater of the samurai and clerical elites. Together, they formed a powerful, albeit relatively small, support base. Beyond this circumscribed circle of aficionados, noh actors were seldom recognized. In this respect, they differed from their peers of the kabuki stage, many of whom were celebrated with gusto in popular fiction and ukiyo-e. "Noh actors often wore masks," says Kendall Brown, a professor of Asian art history at California State University Long Beach, "so they did not engender the same kind of fan appreciation lavished on handsome or winsome kabuki actors."

The shogunate had no problem with that. Although canonical versions of noh plays were widely available, their study, as well as the practice of noh chanting and dancing, was discouraged by the authorities. More importantly, performances were almost invariably held away from the gaze of commoners, in daimyo's residences or on the shogun's palace grounds. Only on rare occasions, say when a temple short of funds resorted to putting on a performance to fill its coffers, were the plebes able to attend.

This arrangement unraveled with the fall of the Tokugawa regime in 1867. Almost overnight, patrons vanished, funds evaporated and troupes disbanded. Many actors fell into penury while others left the profession entirely. In time, however, it dawned on the new Meiji government that noh, like opera in the West, could be helpful to shore up Japan's cultural standing, and they began sponsoring plays. This was an important turning point. Only then, Brown explains, was "noh finally decoupled from warrior culture and prints about it could start appearing in large numbers."

It was around that time, in 1883, when Kogyo was in his mid-teens, that he saw his first noh play, “Shakkyo.” He would illustrate it many times, including as a diptych in “One Hundred Noh Plays.” Kogyo said very little about his first thespian encounter, but it is likely it made quite an impression.

Kogyo began his artistic training in a traditional way. At age 12, he was sent to an uncle to study pottery painting. A few years later, he moved to a prefectural school that specialized in making crafts using glass, ceramics and stone. He remained there for three years and acquired the basic skills he needed to earn his keep.

He had become a craftsman, but he was not yet an artist. That came later, after he completed two apprenticeships: first with Tsukioka Yoshitoshi (1839-92), his stepfather from 1884 and one of the most celebrated painters of the entire ukiyo-e tradition, and then with Ogata Gekko (1859-1920), from whom he received his artist’s name. Soon after, Kogyo began showing his paintings at exhibitions sponsored by the government or within trendy artistic circles. He won several prizes, but never broke out in a big way.

Decades after his death, Kogyo remains an obscure figure — but this could change. According to Yamauchi, scholars have begun reassessing the legacy of Kogyo and other early-20th-century artists. Whether this will result in greater public recognition remains to be seen, but Kogyo might not have cared anyway. What mattered to him was the survival of his beloved noh. He would be pleased to see it is alive and well.

The Portland Art Museum

Special Exhibition

NOH

Dance Drama of the Samurai

NOV 17, 2012 – FEB 24, 2013

Santa Barbara Museum of Art

Presenting Noh Drama:

Theater Prints of Tsukioka Kōgyo

On View February 12 – May 15, 2011

Jōsai International University Mizuta Museum of Art

Tsukioka Kogyo, a modern painter of noh (Sept. 22-Oct. 22, 2005) 

Literature

The Beauty of Silence: Nō and Nature Prints by Tsukioka Kōgyo (1869-1927), Robert Schaap & J. Thomas Rimer, Hotei Publishing, 2010

"Tsukioka Kōgyo and Nō Ukiyo-e," Don Bondi, Daruma Japanese Art & Antiques Magazine, Issue 52, Autumn 2006

"The series Nōgaku hyakuban (100 Nō play) by Tsukioka Kōgyo (1869-1927)," Claus-Peter Schulz, Andon 67, Society of Japanese Arts.

Tsukioka Kogyo, a modern painter of noh (Kindai no nogaka Tsukioka Kogyo ten), Mizuta Bijutsukan, 2005. (Catalog of an exhibition held at Jōsai Kokusai Daigaku Mizuta Bijutsukan, Sept. 22-Oct. 22, 2005.)

Websites

University of Pittsburgh Digital Research Library - a website devoted to the artist displaying all three of the artist's Noh series online along with related information on the artist. https://digital.library.pitt.edu/collection/k%C5%8Dgyo-tsukioka-art-noh [accessed 12-23-23]

The Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery at Scripps College – over 300 works by the artist including his entire series Noh Gaku Hyaku Ban (Variously translated as One Hundred Noh Dramas, One Hundred Prints of the Noh) including the title of the play depicted in each print. https://web-kiosk.scrippscollege.edu/objects-1/thumbnails?records=50&query=mfs%20all%20%22Tsukioka%20Kogyo%22&sort=9 [accessed 12-23-23]

latest revision:

12/23/2023

9/30/2020

Sample Signatures and Seals