Shomyo ji Temple in Kanazawabunko

Shomyo-ji, in Kanazawa-ku in southern Yokohama, is a Shingon Risshu temple founded in the Kamakura period and famous for its Pure Land–style garden centered on a lotus pond crossed by a vermilion arched bridge. The adjacent Kanazawa-bunko, one of medieval Japan's most important libraries, gives the area its name. Morimura's composition almost certainly features the bridge spanning the pond, with the temple's main hall or pagoda framed by surrounding pines and seasonal foliage. His method of building the image from a large number of small carved blocks—each printed in turn on dampened [washi](/glossary/washi) with the [baren](/glossary/baren)—allows the precise articulation of bridge railings, roof tiles, and reflected forms that his temple subjects typically display. Within his Temples & Shrines body of work, Shomyo-ji is a particularly congenial subject because its garden was deliberately laid out as a composed picture for contemplation, making the act of depicting it continuous with the spirit in which it was originally designed.