Meiji Memorial Picture Gallery

The Meiji Memorial Picture Gallery (Seitoku Kinen Kaigakan), completed in 1926 in the Meiji Jingu Gaien, is a Western-style stone building with a central dome housing oil and Japanese-style paintings depicting episodes from the life of Emperor Meiji. As a subject within Henmi's contribution to One Hundred New Views of Tokyo, the gallery represents the new monumental architecture of the imperial capital rather than its older temple and shrine fabric. [Sosaku-hanga](/glossary/sosaku-hanga) depictions of such buildings typically organize the facade into geometric blocks of color, exploiting the woodblock's affinity for flat planes and crisp edges; [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) gradations are used sparingly, often only for sky or shadow. Henmi printed his own blocks in the jihanga manner, and the resulting surface tends to be quieter than commercial [shin-hanga](/glossary/shin-hanga) views of comparable subjects by Hasui or Hiroshi Yoshida. The choice of a Taisho-era civic monument is consistent with the New Views project's interest in cataloguing the Tokyo built since the Meiji Restoration.