Kintai bridge

Kintai bridge depicts the five-arch wooden span over the Nishiki River at Iwakuni in Yamaguchi Prefecture, originally constructed in 1673 and rebuilt after typhoon damage in the postwar period. The print belongs to the [meisho-e](/glossary/meisho-e) tradition of famous-place views, though filtered through Kitaoka's modernist sensibility: rather than the panoramic theatrics of Hokusai or Hiroshige, the composition likely emphasizes the geometric repetition of the wooden arches against the river surface. The carved blocks would distinguish the bridge's construction joinery from the smoother washes of water and sky, with [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) gradations possibly used for atmospheric transitions in the background hills. Kintai-kyō has been a subject for Japanese printmakers since the Edo period, and Kitaoka's treatment connects to his broader interest in Japan's traditional architectural and landscape heritage, observed through the lens of a postwar artist who had also recorded the streets of Paris and New York. The print sits among his Japanese subjects, where the country's familiar landmarks are renewed through the formal vocabulary of [sosaku-hanga](/glossary/sosaku-hanga).