Five-storied Pagoda (Goju no to)
- Date:
- c. 1936
- Medium:
- Color woodblock print
- Format:
- Oban
- Publisher:
- Watanabe Shozaburo
- Edition:
- Published by Watanabe Shozaburo
- Source:
- Art Institute of Chicago
Description
The five-storied pagoda — Goju no to — is the quintessential form of Japanese Buddhist architecture, its stacked tiers and tapering finial creating a vertical axis that oriented worshippers toward the sky. Shotei's circa 1936 treatment renders the pagoda emerging from surrounding trees, its architectural form both precisely observed and atmospherically softened by the bokashi sky above. The subject was canonical in Japanese landscape art, but Shotei brought to it the intimate, quietly absorbed quality that distinguished his work from more monumental treatments.
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Featured in Collections
Curated cross-cuts that include this print.
Frequently Asked Questions
Five-storied Pagoda (Goju no to) was created by Takahashi Shotei (高橋松亭) in c. 1936.
Five-storied Pagoda (Goju no to) was published by Watanabe Shozaburo (c. 1936).
Five-storied Pagoda (Goju no to) depicts temples & shrines and pagodas.