Usa Jingu Shrine, Kyushu

Usa Jingu in Oita Prefecture is the head shrine of the roughly 40,000 Hachiman shrines across Japan, distinguished by its vermillion lacquered structures arranged in the hachiman-zukuri architectural style. Tokuriki's print likely centers on the main hall complex, with its characteristic twin-roof construction set against the surrounding cedar groves. The vermillion of the shrine buildings against deep green foliage offered the kind of strong color contrast that mokuhanga handles particularly well, with separate blocks carrying each pigment to crisp registration. As the twelfth-generation descendant of a family of official print artists for Honganji Temple, Tokuriki brought a deep familiarity with religious architecture to subjects like this — his shrine and temple prints comprise one of the largest single subject groups in his estimated five-thousand-print body of work. Such images were produced both as devotional souvenirs for pilgrims and for collectors interested in documentary records of Japan's sacred sites.