Hie Shrine

Hie Shrine in Akasaka, dedicated to the deity Oyamakui-no-kami, is a major Shinto shrine of Tokyo, originally established as a protective shrine for Edo Castle. Its stepped approach beneath a cedar canopy and its torii on the slope had been recorded by landscape artists since the Edo period. Koizumi likely frames the shrine through its architecture and approach — vermilion timberwork, stone steps, and surrounding vegetation — using bokashi to carry shade through the cedars and registered linework to articulate the precinct's joinery. The print belongs to One Hundred Views of Great Tokyo, the series Koizumi cut and printed himself between 1928 and 1940. Including Hie alongside bridges, stations, and newly built districts reflects his documentary reading of the capital as a layering of Edo-period sacred space and twentieth-century urbanism. The sosaku-hanga method — artist as sole carver and printer — separated him from shin-hanga peers working through publishers such as Watanabe.