About This Print

One of 200 prints issued as part of the series Nōga taikan (Encyclopedia of Noh Plays) depicting a scene from the play Kurozuka (also known as Adachigahara) attributed to the playwright Zeami Motokiyo (1363-1443).

The Play - Kurozuka

Source: A Guide to No, P.G. O'Neill, Hinoki Shoten, 1929, p. 92.
Characters
Act 1: waki - a yamabushi priest; waki-tsure - a yamabushi priest; shite - an village woman; kyōgen - a servant
Act 2: nochi-shite - a female devil

Two traveling priests are given shelter for the night in the house of a poor woman at Kurozuka in Adachigahara.  When she leaves them to collect firewood, she warns them not to look into her room, but the priest's servant is unable to restrain his curiosity.  The horrifying things he sees there convince the priests that they are in the house of a devil.  The woman then appears as an angry demon, but is finally overcome by the power of the priests.

Print Details

IHL Catalog	#842
Title	Kurozuka 黒塚 (also know by its Kanze school name Adachigahara)
Series	Nōga taikan 能画大鑑 (Encyclopedia of Noh Plays or A Great Mirror of Noh Pictures or A Great Collection of Noh Pictures)
Artist	Tsukioka Kōgyo (1869-1927)
Signature	Kōgyo
Seal	Kōgyo seal, seal no. 13, p. 170 in The Beauty of Silence: Nō and Nature Prints by Tsukioka Kōgyo (1869-1927), Robert Schaap & J. Thomas Rimer, Hotei Publishing, 2010.
Date	July 5, 1926
Edition	unknown
Publisher	Seibi Shoten 精美書院 (or Seibi Shoin), Tokyo
Carver	Uchida Eikichi
Printer	Yoshida Takesaburō
Impression	excellent
Colors	excellent
Condition	good - minor wrinkling throughout, several spots of foxing; not backed
Genre	ukiyo-e
Miscellaneous
Format	oban yoko-e
H x W Paper	10 x 14 1/2 in. (25.4 x 36.8 cm)
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