Garden Tenryuji, Kyoto

It was not until the post-World War II period that Japanese sosaku hanga or "creative prints" gained international attention. One of the artists responsible for bringing this art movement to the world stage was Saito Kiyoshi, who won acclaim for the woodblock print he had entered in the São Paolo Biennale of 1951. An intuitive, self-taught artist, unfamiliar with the traditional ukiyo-e ("floating world") Japanese multi-block technique of color printing—in which a separate carved block is employed for each color used in a single composition—Saito developed his own method of making color prints from a single wood block.

While the flat picture plain of this image at first sight recalls recent western abstraction, the print artist’s spare lyrical depictions of Japanese scenic vistas in different seasons continue a pre-westernized, Japanese painting tradition. The subject of this work is the famous rock garden at the Zen temple Tenry-ji in Kyoto, which was designed by the abbot Muso Siseki (1275–1351). By reducing pictorial elements to simplified elemental shapes, Saito creates a contemplative minimalism that is in keeping with the meditative intent of Zen rock gardens.