Toji Pagoda in Kyoto

Tō-ji temple's five-story pagoda in Kyoto's Minami ward is the tallest surviving wooden pagoda in Japan at 54.8 meters. Built in 826 CE and reconstructed in its current form in 1644, it has defined the city's southern skyline for centuries. As a Kyoto-based artist working from a studio in the ancient capital, Kotozuka would have returned to this subject across different seasons. The composition likely positions the pagoda rising above the surrounding temple structures or above the cherry trees for which Tō-ji's spring market is known, using the pagoda's vertical mass as the organizing axis. The tiered, diminishing rooflines—each with turned-up eaves and finials—required careful multi-block registration to maintain structural clarity at different scales. Flat washes of dark gray-green or brown-ochre for the roof tiles against a pale bokashi sky were characteristic of Kotozuka's architectural treatments, giving the heavy masonry and tile forms a weight and materiality suited to the woodblock medium.