Road throuh the Forest at Nikko

A road cuts through the ancient cryptomeria forest at Nikko in this 1916 woodblock print, rendered in oban format. The cedar-lined avenue leading to the Toshogu shrine complex is one of Japan's most celebrated approaches, its towering trees planted in the seventeenth century and now forming a natural cathedral of vertical trunks and filtered light. Lum visited Nikko and responded to its combination of monumental architecture and primeval forest. The road itself becomes the compositional spine, drawing the eye forward through ranks of massive tree trunks that dwarf any human presence. The woodblock medium is well suited to the subject's strong vertical rhythms, and Lum uses limited color — greens, browns, and the pale strip of road — to evoke the cool, shadowed atmosphere beneath the forest canopy.