Agra

Agra, created in 1916, depicts the historic Mughal capital in northern India, a city dominated by the architectural legacy of the emperors who ruled from its red sandstone fort and built the Taj Mahal on the banks of the Yamuna River. Bartlett visited India as part of his extensive travels through Asia, and Agra's concentration of monumental Mughal architecture offered him subjects of extraordinary visual richness.

This color woodcut renders the city's distinctive visual character: the warm tones of red sandstone and white marble set against the flat, hazy landscape of the Indo-Gangetic plain. Bartlett, born in England and later based in Hawaii, brought a Western watercolorist's sensitivity to light and atmosphere to the Japanese woodblock technique he adopted after studying printmaking in Japan. His Indian subjects are among the most unusual works in the shin-hanga tradition, extending the medium's reach far beyond its customary Japanese geographic boundaries.