Torii of Kudan

The great torii at Kudanzaka, the entrance to Yasukuni Shrine on the rise above Kudan in central Tokyo. The bronze torii, originally erected in 1887 and rebuilt in 1933, was a recognizable urban landmark in the period when Kawakami was working, often paired with views of the surrounding cherry trees, the Shōkonsha precinct, and the streetcars that climbed the slope. In Kawakami's hands the gate is reduced to its essential geometry — two uprights, a curved kasagi crossbeam, and the shorter nuki below — flattened against the picture plane with the silhouette emphasized over volume. The print likely sets the torii against a simplified ground of sky, foliage, or buildings, printed in a small number of opaque color blocks rather than the gradated bokashi skies of shin-hanga shrine views. Among Kawakami's Tokyo subjects, Kudan belongs to the same inventory as his Ginza, gas-lamp, and Westernized-architecture prints: monuments of the modern city handled in a deliberately archaic graphic register.