Tokyo Business Street
- Medium:
- Woodblock print
- Source:
- Legion of Honor
This print departs from the temple compounds and parks that dominate Koizumi's hundred-view series, turning instead to the commercial streetscape of modernizing Tokyo. A business district scene would have presented Western-influenced brick and concrete architecture alongside signage, utility poles, trolley infrastructure, and pedestrian crowds—the visual complexity of a city absorbing rapid industrialization. Koizumi's self-carved lines would have been pressed to render the receding geometry of a city street, with perspective drawing the eye toward a vanishing point framed by building facades. Unlike the atmospheric landscapes of [shin-hanga](/glossary/shin-hanga) publishers such as Watanabe, Koizumi's direct carving tends toward a more graphic, assertive line. The subject places him in a distinct documentary tradition—recording Tokyo's commercial modernity rather than retreating to idealized nature or nostalgia—consistent with the broader aim of the Showa dai Tokyo series to chart the city as it actually existed in the interwar decades.
Woodblock print
1934
Color woodblock print; oban
1932
Color woodblock print; oban
![Kiba Lumberyard along the River at Fukugawa (New Edition) [Fukagawa-ku, kiba no kawasuji (shinpan)], from the series "One Hundred Views of Great Tokyo in the Showa Era (Showa dai Tokyo fukei hyaku zue hanga)" by Kishio Koizumi](https://www.artic.edu/iiif/2/f6380c15-6d23-c26a-899d-08ead4db792b/full/843,/0/default.jpg)
1940
Color woodblock print; oban
Woodblock print
1928
Color lithograph
1930
Color lithograph
1948
Woodblock print, ink and color on paper
Curated cross-cuts that include this print.
Tokyo Business Street was created by Kishio Koizumi (小泉癸巳男).
Tokyo Business Street depicts urban scenes.