Summer At Jojuri-ji temple

Jojuri-ji, a Pure Land temple in the hills southeast of Kyoto, is celebrated for its Heian-period Amida hall housing nine seated Buddha statues and for the surrounding Jodo paradise garden centered on a reflecting pond. This summer view would foreground the dense green of seasonal foliage against the temple's tile-roofed structures, with the still pond serving as a compositional anchor. Tokuriki's treatment likely employed multiple greens registered in successive [nishiki-e](/glossary/nishiki-e) impressions, with [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) gradation across the water and sky to convey midsummer light and humidity. The print belongs to his extensive catalog of Kyoto-region temple subjects, which formed the core of his output across both the [shin-hanga](/glossary/shin-hanga) commercial market and his independent [sosaku-hanga](/glossary/sosaku-hanga) work. As the twelfth-generation representative of a family long associated with Honganji Temple, Tokuriki approached Buddhist sites with a documentary attention to architectural detail and seasonal atmosphere. Such temple-and-garden compositions, anchored in the [meisho-e](/glossary/meisho-e) tradition, sustained domestic and tourist demand for woodblock views of historic Kyoto throughout the Showa era.