Gate, Shiba Zoujouji

Zōjōji is the Jōdo-shū Buddhist temple complex in Shiba, central Tokyo, founded at its present location in 1598 and the funerary temple of six Tokugawa shōguns. Its Sangedatsumon — the two-storied 1622 main gate — is among the few structures to have survived both the Meiji-era confiscations and the firebombings of 1945, and it has featured in Japanese prints since the Edo period. Morimura's depiction likely centers the gate frontally, organizing the elaborate kumimono bracketing, vermilion-painted columns, and tiled roof into a tightly composed grid of cut shapes. His characteristic flattening reduces the gate's depth into stacked registers of color — vermilion uprights, white plaster panels, dark tile — printed from successive blocks on [washi](/glossary/washi). The subject places the print in dialogue with Hiroshige's Edo views and Hasui's twentieth-century Tokyo scenes while updating the iconography for a contemporary audience. As with all mokuhanga, registration is achieved through kentō notches and pigments are applied by [baren](/glossary/baren), retaining the medium's distinctive surface texture.