Handbook of the old shrines and temples and their treasures in Japan
A 1920 handbook issued in Tokyo by the Bureau of Religions of Japan's Department of Education, cataloguing old Japanese shrines, temples and their treasures for a general and scholarly readership. The four plates show a multi-storey pagoda-style hall with tiled roof, a bronze or metal relief panel covered in tiny seated Buddha figures and a stupa, a dim painting of a seated Buddha surrounded by attendants and flowers, and a small octagonal hall among pines. For designers, the pagoda silhouettes and the dense repeated Buddha motifs offer clear, ordered patterns of tiers, roofs and rows.
