Pilgrims

Henro pilgrims, walking the Shikoku eighty-eight-temple circuit or other Buddhist pilgrimage routes, are a long-standing subject in Japanese visual culture. The print likely depicts figures in white pilgrim robes (hakui), sedge hats (sugegasa), and wooden staves (kongozue), the traditional uniform that identifies the henro at sight. Within Wada Sanzo's documentary series of Showa-era occupations and social types, the pilgrims represent a distinctly traditional mode of life set against the more modern professions also catalogued. Wada renders the figures with flat planes of color and decisive outlines, with attention to the specific religious accoutrements that identify pilgrim identity. The work is constructed in standard nishiki-e fashion - multiple woodblocks for keylines and color, registered and printed on washi using the baren - with bokashi gradations reserved for atmosphere or landscape elements. Trained at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts under Kuroda Seiki in Western yoga, Wada brought Western painting sensibilities to subjects rooted in Japanese religious practice. The series occupies a documentary territory adjacent to but distinct from both shin-hanga and sosaku-hanga of the same period.