red gate of Imperial University

A second treatment of the Akamon at Hongo suggests Maeda returned to the gate to test an alternative composition, color register, or seasonal condition, a working practice common among print designers who found a motif productive enough to merit revision. The Akamon's vermillion lacquer, dating to the gate's 1827 construction for the marriage of a Tokugawa daughter into the Maeda clan of Kaga, presents the same chromatic problem in each version: how to balance the red mass of the architecture against surrounding foliage, stone, and sky. Variant prints of a single subject allow exploration of different vantage points — frontal versus angled approach — different light, or different printing decisions such as the depth of [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) behind the gate. For an artist who worked in both the [shin-hanga](/glossary/shin-hanga) and [sosaku-hanga](/glossary/sosaku-hanga) modes, returning to an architectural landmark also permits comparison between publisher-driven collaboration with professional carvers and printers and the more direct hand of self-carved, self-printed work.