Sacred Bridge in Nikko

Sacred Bridge in Nikko, completed by Shiro Kasamatsu in 1941, depicts the Shinkyo, the vermilion-lacquered bridge that arches over the Daiya River at the entrance to the Nikko shrine and temple complex in Tochigi Prefecture. The Shinkyo is one of Japan's most recognised cultural landmarks and is associated with the legendary founding of Nikko by the priest Shodo Shonin; it functions in tradition as a threshold between everyday space and the sacred mountain precincts beyond. Kasamatsu places the bridge at the centre of the composition and lets its saturated red lacquer carry the print, framed by the dark greens of cedars and the cooler tones of the river and stone embankment. The print is a strong example of shin-hanga as a movement: a self-consciously modern reinterpretation of classical ukiyo-e meisho-e (famous-place pictures) made for a twentieth-century audience. Kasamatsu produced the work in collaboration with the publisher Watanabe Shozaburo, who managed the carvers and printers and coordinated international distribution; Watanabe's house style is visible in the careful bokashi gradations in the sky and water, the controlled use of mica or burnishing on the bridge's surface, and the crisp keyblock. The 1941 date places the print at the very edge of the shin-hanga boom, just as wartime restrictions on materials would begin to disrupt the studio system. Today the print is preserved in the Art Institute of Chicago's holdings of twentieth-century Japanese prints.