Negoro Pagoda of Mt. Koya

The Negoro Pagoda of Mt. Koya — Negoro-ji's distinctive pagoda structure associated with the Shingon Buddhist tradition of Koyasan — is rendered with Asano's characteristic attention to how architectural forms relate to their mountainous landscape settings. Mt. Koya, the sacred mountain that is the center of Shingon Buddhism in Japan, provided him with a subject that combined his sustained interest in temple and pagoda architecture with the dramatic natural setting of a high mountain plateau. The pagoda's vertical form rising above the forested landscape created the kind of dramatic compositional contrast he sought in his architectural subjects.