Daimonji Festival - 大文字 (1)

This print records the Gozan no Okuribi, Kyoto's summer festival in which bonfires form kanji characters on surrounding hillsides. The 大 character — meaning 'great' — burns on the slope of Daimonji-yama each August 16, and was among the most widely depicted festival subjects in [shin-hanga](/glossary/shin-hanga) landscape printing. Kamei's composition likely positions the viewer at a distance sufficient to read the full character against the mountain, with the darkened city or river visible in the lower register. The technical demands of this subject were considerable: a deep, even ground required multiple inkings, while the fire itself was printed with transparent layers of red, orange, and yellow to suggest luminosity. As one of potentially several treatments in a series, this print represents Kamei's sustained engagement with Kyoto's ceremonial calendar.