Five Storied Pagoda Hagurosan

The print depicts the early-fifteenth-century five-storied pagoda standing within the cedar grove at Mount Haguro in Yamagata, one of the three sacred peaks of Dewa Sanzan. Morimura typically renders such subjects through his distinctive vocabulary: the pagoda's tiered roofs reduced to stacked geometric planes, the surrounding cryptomeria trunks rendered as patterned vertical bands, and the moss-covered earth as a textured ground of carefully cut grain. The composition emphasizes the structure's vertical thrust against the encompassing forest, using contrasts between the pagoda's manmade order and the organic complexity of the cedars. The unpainted wood exterior of the Hagurosan pagoda, a feature that distinguishes it from many Japanese pagodas, invites a restrained palette of browns, greens, and weathered grays printed across multiple blocks with careful baren registration. As with much of Morimura's output, the print belongs to his sustained exploration of sacred architecture across the seasons, treating the building less as monument than as participant in its setting.