Yūshin Ayaoka

1846 ~ 1910

Yūshin Ayaoka, born in Edo, was the son of Terumatsu Ikeda and a student of Shibata Zeshin during his youth. During the Meiji period, he was active as a woodblock print artist as well as a painter and calligrapher. He specialized in kachō-e (bird-and-flower pictures) and fūkeiga (landscapes).
Unfortunately, little is known about his life and career today, and his known output is limited, including a few collections such as the "Nice Views of Nikkō" (Nikkō Shōkei). His works are included in prestigious collections such as the British Museum and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.

Artwork Description Sold Out
A view of the Tōshōgu shrine
Meiji
It is named Tōshōgu any temple built to honor the memory of Tokugawa Ieyasu, the founder of the Tokugawa shogunate which lasted for almost three centuries (all the length of the Edo period, from1603 to 1868).
Ieyasu is enshrined in any of these Shrines, whose name comes from the title Tōshō Daigongen, "Great manifestation of the Buddha, Light of the East", which was bestowed to Ieyasu to after his death, deifying him.
The most renowned one is he Nikkō Tōshōgu followed by the Ueno Tōshōgu (in the Ueno park of Tōkyō), the Kunōzan Tōshōgu in Shizuoka and the Nagoya Tōshōgu, but it is told that there were almost five hundred Tōshōgu Shrine during the Edo period, nowadays reduced to 130 of which 48 are recognized by the national Tōshōgu association.
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Artwork Description Sold Out
Sōrintō
Meiji
A sōrintō (alternate rings tower) is a kind of short pagoda consisting only of a pole and a sōrin on top of it.
A sōrin is a stone or wooden made vertical shaft, composed by different sections (or rings), each one with a symbolic meaning, which can be observed on the top of any Japanese pagoda. So a sōrintō actually lacks the pagoda itself (the building as we know) which is simply replaced, then simbolized by the vertical shaft.
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