The starting way to Tsubosaka Temple

Tsubosaka-dera, properly Minami Hokke-ji, is a Shingon temple founded in 703 at Takatori in Nara Prefecture. It became known as a temple for the healing of eye ailments and was the setting for the bunraku and kabuki play 'Tsubosaka Reigenki.' The 'starting way' indicates the pilgrimage approach: the sloping path, stone steps, or gateway leading toward the temple precincts. Such approach views were an established subgenre within the [meisho-e](/glossary/meisho-e) tradition, allowing the artist to render a sense of journey and arrival alongside the architectural subject. Nakazawa's treatment, consistent with [sosaku-hanga](/glossary/sosaku-hanga) aesthetics, prioritizes the felt experience of the place—the play of light through trees, the rhythm of paving, the spatial recession—over the encyclopedic detail of earlier guide-style prints. His handling of muted tonal harmonies, drawn from his oil painting practice under Kuroda Seiki, gives the temple subject a contemplative register suited to the site's religious associations and to the literati taste for quiet, garden-centered Buddhist hermitages.