Toshogu Shrine, signed in pencil in Roman, and in Brush in Japanese,

Tōshōgū Shrine at Nikkō is among the most ornate religious complexes in Japan, its carved and gilded buildings embedded in a forest of ancient cryptomeria rising steeply from the valley floor. Yoshida's 1937 print — signed in both Roman and Japanese script, as was his practice — captures the shrine's extraordinary decorative ambition: the vermilion lacquer, the polychrome carvings, the gold leaf that covers structural members not usually decorated in Japanese architecture. The forest setting creates a dramatic contrast between the shrine's exuberant ornamentation and the solemn verticality of the trees.