Pagoda In Kyoto

A meisho-e of one of Kyoto's surviving multi-storied pagodas, most plausibly the five-storey pagoda of To-ji or the Yasaka pagoda of Hokan-ji in Higashiyama, both standing landmarks of the old capital. Toshi Yoshida extended his father's project of documenting Japanese architectural heritage in modern color woodblock, employing the bokashi gradients and multi-block layering that defined the Yoshida studio's shin-hanga output. The composition likely frames the tower against tonal washes of sky, with the wooden structure rendered through carefully registered impressions that distinguish roof tiles, eave brackets, and the finial that crowns the pagoda. Pagoda subjects appear in Hiroshi Yoshida's prints of the 1930s, and Toshi continued the family's interest in Buddhist architecture across his own career. The print is pulled on washi from cherry-wood blocks using hand-mixed pigments, in the workshop tradition Toshi inherited and operated until his death in 1995.