Arashiyama

Without a season specified in the title, this Arashiyama view may show the district in autumn foliage or winter quiet, or function as a generalized study of the locale Tokuriki returned to throughout his career. The compositional ingredients remain consistent across his Arashiyama prints: the curve of the river, Togetsukyo bridge, the wooded mountain, and a foreground motif of riverside path, boats, or shrine roofs. Flat color planes define architectural elements while [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) handles atmospheric passages of water and sky. Tokuriki's Arashiyama prints amount to a sustained study of a single locale across changing conditions, in line with the longer Japanese practice of returning to meisho repeatedly. The [oban](/glossary/oban)-format mokuhanga technique—produced through cooperative carving and printing in his Kyoto studio for [shin-hanga](/glossary/shin-hanga) publishers, or self-carved and self-printed in his [sosaku-hanga](/glossary/sosaku-hanga) work—reflects his position bridging the two twentieth-century print movements.