Evening Rain, Yanaka Pagoda, Tokyo

Evening Rain, Yanaka Pagoda, Tokyo records the pagoda at Tennoji Temple in the Yanaka district of Tokyo, one of the most painted and photographed structures of pre-war and immediate postwar Tokyo, in a moment of falling rain. The Yanaka pagoda, a five-story wooden structure long associated with the surrounding shitamachi neighbourhood, was destroyed by fire in 1957; surviving images of it, including Shiro Kasamatsu's shin-hanga treatments, now function as both art and historical record. Kasamatsu sets the pagoda against a darkening sky, with diagonal lines of rain articulated through fine keyblock cutting and the wet streets reflecting muted lantern and window light. The choice of subject reflects shin-hanga's broader interest in atmospheric, mood-driven views of Japanese landscape and architecture, often photographed-feeling but rooted in the traditional categories of fukei-ga (landscape pictures) and meisho-e (famous-place pictures). The print follows the standard shin-hanga production model associated with the publisher Watanabe Shozaburo, with whom Kasamatsu collaborated for much of his career: the artist's drawing was carved into a keyblock and a sequence of colour blocks, then printed by workshop printers using techniques including bokashi gradation, controlled embossing, and careful registration. The print is documented through the ukiyo-e.org aggregator, which catalogues impressions in museum and dealer collections.