Autumn Scenery at Takao

Takao, in the northwestern hills of Kyoto, is associated with Jingo-ji and the Kiyotaki river gorge, and ranks among the established momiji-viewing destinations of the region. This print would depict the steep wooded slopes during the autumn color season, when the maples turn through gradations of yellow, orange, and deep red against the dark evergreen of cedar and pine. Compositions of Takao in the shin-hanga idiom typically employ a high vantage looking down into the gorge, with the river threading through the lower portion of the sheet and the foliage massed across the upper registers. Such a subject draws on the printer's full bokashi vocabulary, requiring overlaid impressions to build the layered tonalities of autumn leaves without flattening them into uniform blocks of color. The translucent washi support carries these gradations particularly well when burnished with the baren. The print sits within Nomura's broader engagement with seasonal landscape subjects, a category that publishers of the shin-hanga period actively commissioned as part of documenting the traditional scenic calendar of Japan.