View of the Kyokochihan

The Kyōkochi (鏡湖池, "Mirror Pond") is the pond at the heart of the garden at Kinkaku-ji in northern Kyoto, designed in the late fourteenth century to reflect the Golden Pavilion across its surface. The print likely depicts the shoreline of this pond, with the surrounding pine, maple, and stone arrangements characteristic of the strolling garden. A subject of this kind invites the use of [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi)—graduated ink printing achieved by wiping pigment unevenly across the woodblock—to render the transitions between water, foliage reflections, and sky. Multiple impressions on [washi](/glossary/washi) build the registered layers of color characteristic of mid-twentieth-century landscape mokuhanga. Kinkaku-ji and its garden recur throughout Kotozuka's catalog, fitting his lifelong project of documenting the temples, gardens, and shrines of Kyoto from his self-published Kyoto studio.