Momoyama Gate (Kyoto)

The title points to a gate in the Momoyama style, the late-sixteenth-century idiom of carved transoms, gilded metalwork, and powerful bracketing that survives at structures like the Karamon at Nishi Honganji and other Kyoto temple precincts. Hashimoto's interest in such a subject lies in the structural logic of the gate -- the deep eaves, the curved karahafu pediment, the column-and-bracket assembly -- rather than its decorative surface. The composition likely frames the gate frontally or at a slight three-quarter angle, with the carved tympanum and the heavy tiled roof occupying most of the sheet, and a glimpse of the courtyard or outer wall to either side. The palette would set the dark timbers and copper-green metal fittings against the lighter plaster and gravel ground, with a flat ink line carved in the keyblock to define the joinery. Like his castle prints, this is a sosaku-hanga work in which Hashimoto designed, carved, and printed every block himself on washi, treating Kyoto's surviving Momoyama-era architecture as a serious subject on the same footing as the famous tower keeps.