Godaido Shrine, Matsushima

Matsushima Bay in Miyagi prefecture is one of the Nihon Sankei, the three views considered most beautiful in Japan, celebrated since the seventeenth century for its hundreds of pine-covered islets. The Godaido is a small Buddhist hall built on a tiny rocky islet in the bay, reached by a short vermilion bridge and surrounded by twisted pines. Kasamatsu would compose the structure against sky and water, with the bridge providing a chromatic accent against the predominant greens, blues, and grays. Bokashi gradients establish atmosphere across the bay, while careful keyblock cutting renders the temple's bracket complexes and tiled roof. Matsushima had been a meisho subject since Hiroshige's Famous Views series of the 1850s; Kasamatsu's twentieth-century treatment continues that lineage while substituting shin-hanga atmospheric values for the earlier emphasis on graphic clarity and named tourist points.