Kiyomizu Temple (清水寺)

Kiyomizu-dera, the Pure Water Temple, is a Buddhist temple of the Hosso sect (since 1965 of the independent Kita-Hosso sect after separation from the parent Hosso school), founded according to tradition in 778 by the priest Enchin on the wooded slope of Mount Otowa in the Higashiyama district of eastern Kyoto in present-day Higashiyama Ward. The temple takes its name from the Otowa waterfall on the temple grounds, whose three streams of clear water are believed by tradition to confer longevity, success in studies, and successful relationships when drunk in the proper sequence with the long-handled ladles provided for visitors. The principal hall (hondo) is celebrated for the great wooden veranda (butai) that projects approximately 13 meters from the main building over the steep hillside on the south face of the temple, supported by an array of tall keyaki (Japanese zelkova) pillars assembled without nails, and offering a panoramic view westward over the Kyoto basin to the distant Atago and Arashiyama hills. The veranda generated the Japanese expression Kiyomizu no butai kara tobiori (jumping off the Kiyomizu veranda), meaning to take a decisive resolution, from the Edo-period practice of jumping from the platform as a religious act believed to grant wishes if survived. The present main hall was rebuilt in 1633 by order of the third Tokugawa shogun, Iemitsu, as the principal seventeenth-century Tokugawa religious foundation in Kyoto, and the surrounding structures, including the Nio gate at the western entrance, the three-story pagoda, the Okuno-in inner sanctuary at the far end of the temple complex, the Koyasu pagoda, and the Jishu shrine of love at the rear of the main hall, were also rebuilt or established in the same Edo-period campaign. Kiyomizu-dera was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1994 as part of the Historic Monuments of Ancient Kyoto group. For Japanese printmaking Kiyomizu-dera stands as one of the most depicted Kyoto sites. Utagawa Hiroshige treated the temple in his Famous Views of Kyoto issued around 1834, in which the veranda and the surrounding cherry blossom are the principal subject, and in individual sheets, with the dramatic projection of the platform offering an unusually adaptable compositional motif. The temple appears in Edo-period printed guidebooks to the city, in Hasegawa Sadanobu's Kansai-region sheets, and in the Meiji-period kaika-e treatments of Kyoto. The shin-hanga revival brought a sustained engagement, with Kawase Hasui producing snow, twilight, and night views of the veranda, the pagoda, and the approach through the surrounding Sannenzaka and Ninenzaka streets below, including the celebrated Kiyomizu in Snow and similar compositions, and Tsuchiya Koitsu, Asano Takeji, Tokuriki Tomikichiro, and Yoshida Hiroshi contributing further compositions. Yoshida Hiroshi's Kiyomizu sheets include variant impressions under different conditions. The temple is also a recurrent subject of Kyoto sosaku-hanga prints across the twentieth century, with Saito Kiyoshi, Tokuriki Tomikichiro, and the Kyoto creative-print circle treating the architecture in graphic compositions. The visual character of Kiyomizu in prints is built on the projecting veranda against the steep wooded slope, the slender vermilion pagoda rising among the surrounding maple trees, the curving roof lines of the main hall, the lantern-lit approach paths from the Sannenzaka and Ninenzaka streets below with their preserved Edo-period wooden facades, the foreground figures of pilgrims and visitors, and the seasonal phenomena of cherry blossom in early April and brilliant autumn maple in mid-November that frame the temple buildings. Contemporary visitors find Kiyomizu among the most heavily visited temples in Kyoto, reached via the City Bus to Gojo-zaka or Kiyomizu-michi stops or by walking up the Sannenzaka and Ninenzaka approach streets, with the standard Higashiyama walking circuit linking it to the Yasaka Shrine, Chion-in, and Maruyama Park to the north.

Hanga catalogues 4 prints depicting Kiyomizu Temple (清水寺), by 2 different artists.

Kawase Hasui and Tomikichiro Tokuriki are among the 2 artists who depicted Kiyomizu Temple in our collection.