Hanga
Tori No by Kimura Yoshiharu — Japanese Mokuhanga (Japanese woodblock)

Tori No

by Kimura Yoshiharu

Medium:
Mokuhanga (Japanese woodblock)
Image courtesy of
Saru Gallery

Description

The title likely abbreviates a longer caption referencing torii, the vermilion gates that mark the threshold to a Shinto shrine, an interpretation supported by the print's Temples and Shrines categorization. The composition probably centers such a gate framing a path, stone steps, or a distant honden. Twentieth-century landscape mokuhanga of this kind typically relies on a strong vertical axis from the gate's two pillars, the flat lacquer-red of the timber set against gradated (bokashi) passages of sky or surrounding cedar foliage. Registration of the architectural members against atmospheric ground requires careful key-block alignment, while the red is often built through two or three overlaid impressions to achieve saturation. Without documentary evidence placing Kimura Yoshiharu in either the shin-hanga publishers' stable or the sosaku-hanga association, the print is best understood as part of the broader mid-twentieth-century continuation of meisho-e shrine subjects produced by smaller workshops for a domestic audience rather than for export collectors.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Tori No was created by Kimura Yoshiharu (木村吉晴).

Tori No depicts temples & shrines.