The outer garden of Meiji Shrine

The Meiji Jingu Gaien, completed in 1926, comprises the ceremonial precinct northeast of Aoyama, featuring the Seitoku Memorial Picture Gallery and the ginkgo-lined approach known as Icho Namiki. A print on this subject would likely register the Western-influenced landscaping that distinguished the Gaien from the heavily wooded Inner Garden — perhaps the symmetrical rows of ginkgo, the pale dome of the gallery, or visitors traversing the wide boulevard. As a [meisho-e](/glossary/meisho-e) of modern Tokyo, the composition calls for crisp linework and flat color blocks suited to the geometric architecture, while [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) gradations soften the sky and suggest the depth of foliage. Oda's training in Western-style painting under Kawamura Kiyoo and his absorption of Bonnard's flattened perspectival logic align with this sort of subject — a modernizing of the meisho-e tradition for a Tokyo whose monuments postdated the Meiji Restoration.