Great Buddha at Kamakura

This print represents the Daibutsu of Kotoku-in in Kamakura, the seated bronze image of Amida Buddha cast in 1252 and standing roughly thirteen meters tall. Following the destruction of the surrounding hall by tsunami in the late fifteenth century, the figure has sat in the open air, becoming a recurring subject for both Edo-period [meisho-e](/glossary/meisho-e) artists and twentieth-century printmakers. Tokuriki's composition would likely frame the seated Buddha against the wooded hills behind, employing [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) gradation in the sky and modulated greens for the surrounding trees, with careful registration of the bronze patination through layered greys, greens, and browns. The subject suited Tokuriki particularly well: as the twelfth-generation representative of a Kyoto family with longstanding ties to Honganji Temple and Pure Land Buddhist art, he approached Buddhist iconography with an informed eye. The print sits within his broad corpus of religious subjects, which spanned major sites across Japan and continued the meisho-e tradition of documenting culturally significant places for both domestic and international audiences.