Japanese Scenes on "Tanzaku"

Pillar prints, or ko-tanzaku, are a format that creates beautiful challenges for the artist and their compositions.

Vertical, narrow prints are a by-product of traditional Japanese architecture, which offered very few solid wall surfaces. Many times, the only solid surface available for the hanging of pictures, were the structural posts which held up the roof. “Pillar prints” became a genre unto themselves and were referred to in Japanese as hashira-e or tanzaku.

This series, “Japanese Scenes on Tanzaku”, was created by Yoshimoto Gesso and Shoda Koho in the Hasegawa / Nishinomiya catalog and comprised of 8 sets of 12 prints (total of 96 images).