Nikko Yomeimon

The Yōmeimon, or Gate of Sunlight, is the central ceremonial gate of the Tōshōgū shrine at Nikkō, mausoleum of Tokugawa Ieyasu and one of the most heavily ornamented structures in Japan. Its eaves carry hundreds of polychrome carvings — sages, dragons, lions, and mythical beasts — earning it the nickname Higurashi-no-mon, the gate one can spend a whole day looking at. A print of this subject demands disciplined drawing: the bracket complex (tokyō) is dense and symmetrical, and the keyblock has to register without becoming clotted. Maeda likely organized the composition with the gate set frontally or near-frontally, allowing flat areas of vermilion lacquer and white plaster to read against the dark cryptomeria forest behind. Within his oeuvre this stands as one of his more architectural meisho-e and connects him to the long lineage of Nikkō prints stretching back through Hiroshige. Maeda's treatment, working in the sosaku-hanga spirit of designer-carver-printer unity, would emphasize the print's flat decorative pattern over the documentary fidelity favored by earlier shin-hanga.