Kitano Shrine

Kitano Tenmangu, dedicated to the deified scholar Sugawara no Michizane, is one of the principal shrines of northwest Kyoto and is identified above all with its plum grove, which flowers from late February into March. Kotozuka's print almost certainly draws on this association, framing the vermilion-lacquered romon gate or the inner haiden behind branches of white and red plum. The vermilion of shrine architecture provided one of the few saturated colors in his otherwise muted Kyoto palette, and would have been carried by a separate block printed with relatively heavy pigment, set against bokashi-graded sky and the soft pinks of the blossom. Carved detail in the bracketing and roof tiles is kept fine by the keyblock, while the foreground stone paths and lanterns are typically rendered in flat grey washes. The subject sits at the center of his concentration on Kyoto's religious sites, and follows the shin-hanga convention of locating a single famous place within a particular season rather than treating it as a timeless landmark.