About This Print

Catalogue Raisonné Entry

Source: Kawase Hasui; The Complete Woodblock Prints, Kendall Brown, Amy Reigle Newland, Amsterdam, Hotei Publishing, KIT Publishers, 2003, p. 123.
The Tosho shrine in Tokyo’s Ueno park is dedicated to the first Tokugawa shogun, Ieyasu (1543-1616). The shrine precinct affords a good view of the five-storeyed pagoda of the Kan’ei temple.

Tosho Shrine today

Catalogue Raisonné image and entry   509 Spring dusk at the Tosho shrine, Ueno (Haru no yu (Ueno Toshogu))   Work of 1948 Hasui signature with K awase Seal Printer: Ono Gintaro (suri Ono Gintaro seal) Publisher: Watanabe Shozaburo (Seal A)

Five Story Pagoda of Kaneiji Temple

Source: Travel Japan website http://www.xs4all.nl/~daikoku/tabi/ensoku/tabi-10.htm
The Five Story Pagoda pictured in this print was formerly part of Kaneiji Temple,the temple of the Tokugawa shoguns.

Kaneiji Temple was established in 1625 by the Buddhist priest Tenkai, on the request of the Tokugawa shogun. The temple was located to the northwest of Edo Castle, a direction that was considered to be unlucky and therefore needed some spiritual protection. The temple complex was enormous, covering more than a million square meters, and possessing dozens of buildings. It was one of the most important temples of the Tendai sect, with headquarters on Mt. Hiei near Kyoto, and therefore was called the "Hiei of the East." In its glory days it was twice as large as Ueno Park today. Its buildings were almost all destroyed by fire during the short war that raged here when the shogunate fell in 1867, as some of its troops used the temple grounds to make a last stand. The rather simple, present temple buildings were brought from the Kitain Temple in Kawagoe in 1879; they stand north of the park. In the park itself, only two of the original buildings still survive: the Kiyomizudo Temple, a smaller imitation of the Kiyomizu Temple in Kyoto, including the stage; and the Five Story Pagoda (Goju no To) standing forlornly inside Ueno Zoo.