Sanjo Ohashi bridge

Sanjo Ohashi is the bridge across the Kamo River in Kyoto that marked the western terminus of the historic Tokaido highway, the same crossing depicted as the closing image of Hiroshige's Tokaido series of 1833–34. Sekino's print belongs to his own reinterpretation of the fifty-three Tokaido stations, a project he pursued from the early 1960s through the early 1970s. Where Hiroshige worked within the commercial nishiki-e tradition with division of labor between artist, carver, and printer, Sekino approached the subject as a sosaku-hanga artist — designing, carving, and printing the blocks himself. The composition typically features the wooden bridge spanning the Kamo with the surrounding cityscape compressed into broad geometric planes. Sekino's mature manner favored flat color areas, decisive contour, and bokashi gradation in sky and water, registered through multiple impressions onto thick washi. The work positions the artist within a long lineage while asserting a modernist sensibility.