$500–$4,000. Common prints: $500–$1,500. Key value factors: Sasajima's meditative prints appeal to collectors of both Japanese prints and modern art.
This woodblock print portrays the road to Ikaruga, the area in Nara Prefecture home to Horyu-ji, one of the world's oldest surviving wooden structures and a repository of Japan's earliest Buddhist art. The ancient temple complex, founded in the seventh century, drew pilgrims and artists alike along roads that wound through the flat Yamato plain. Sasajima renders the approach rather than the temple itself, finding visual and spiritual interest in the journey. The road functions as a path of pilgrimage, and the landscape through which it passes carries the accumulated weight of centuries of Buddhist devotion. Sasajima revisited the Ikaruga subject multiple times across his career, treating the road as a recurring motif that resonated with his own Buddhist practice and his belief that the spiritual journey matters as much as the destination.
1962
Woodblock print, ink and color on paper
Wakasa Kugushiko
1920
Color woodblock print; oban
Boshu Taikai
1925
Color woodblock print; oban
Niigata Gosaibori
1921
Color woodblock print; oban
Curated cross-cuts that include this print.
Ikazuma (Ikaruga Road to Horyu-ji) was created by Kihei Sasajima (笹島喜平).
Ikazuma (Ikaruga Road to Horyu-ji) depicts travel scenes.
