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Nakazawa Hiromitsu - Picture Album of the Thirty-Three Pilgrimage Places of the Western Provinces

西国三十三所巡礼画巻

Saigoku sanjūsansho junrei gakan

Picture Album Box - 1925 First Edition

Picture Album Box - 1946 Second Edition

The Artist, Nakazawa Hiromitsu, age 52, 1926

"Mr. Hiromitsu Nakazawa returns to the inn in Kyoto from his pilgrimage", 1925

by Hiromitsu's friend and fellow artist Akatsuka Chūichi

The Artist - Nakazawa Hiromitsu (1874-1964) on Pilgrimage

left to right: Nakazawa Hiromitsu, Ishikura Suiyō, and

Akatsuka Chūichi, Nara Park, 1924

image source: scanned from Nakazawa Hiromitsu kenkyū, Hiromitsu Nakazawa, et. al., Mitsui Kōkei, 2006, p. 67.

On December 11, 1923, at the age of 49, the artist and illustrator Nakazawa Hiromitsu 中澤弘光 (1874-1964), accompanied by his friends the haiku poet Ishikura Suiyō 石倉翠葉 (1875-1938) and the Western-style painter Akatsuka Chūichi 赤塚忠一 (1887-?), set off on a pilgrimage to the thirty-three temples that comprise the Saigoku Kannon Pilgrimage.

Pictured on the left are the three pilgrims in Nara Park during their 78 day pilgrimage, wearing the latest in men's fashion, a tonbi sleeveless overcoat with a hip-length shoulder cape worn over a kimono, a Western-style hat and, on their feet, traditional geta, to keep them elevated from the mud on the many trails they were to travel on this 1000km (600 mile) trek. (Although one can assume transport other than their own feet was occasionally used.)

It is unknown why they undertook this trip a little over three months after the 1923 Great Kantō Earthquake which devastated Tokyo, but perhaps it was to find solace in the ancient temples and the company of good friends. (Akatsuka and Nakazawa along with several other artists had contributed to the publisher Kanao Tanejirō's October 1923 Picture Album of the Great Kanto Earthquake 関東大震災画帖.) Nakazawa, the leader of the trio, was a traveler at heart and a prolific author and illustrator of books and prints in the very popular sketch-tour genre, which saw artists traveling throughout the country and the Japanese colonies sketching and writing about the places visited.

In June 1925, fifteen months after the trio completed their pilgrimage in February 1924, the publisher Kanao Tanejirō, who had previously published Nakazawa's sketch-tour books, released the print album titled Saigoku sanjūsansho junrei gakan ("Picture Album of the Thirty-Three Pilgrimage Places of the Western Provinces") consisting of woodblock prints made from Nakazawa's sketches, poems by Ishikura and one print by Akatsuka of Nakazawa resting after his journey. Other material for the album was contributed by University President and Doctor of Religion Mochizuki Shinkō 望月信亨 (1869–1948)1, Washio Junkyō 鷲尾順敬 (1868-1941), the Buddhist scholar and historiographer, and the tanka poet Sasaki Nobutsuna 佐佐木信綱 (1872-1963)2, making this album quite a religious and literary, as well as pictorial, undertaking.

The Saigoku Kannon Pilgrimage (Saigoku sanjūsansho junrei)

Sources: website of cultural anthropologist Martin Gray http://www.taleofgenji.org/saigoku_pilgrimage.html [accessed 1-4-23]and "Buddhist Pilgrim/Buddhist Exile: Old and New Images of Retired Emperor Kazan in the Saigoku Kannon Temple Guidebooks," Mark MacWilliams, appearing in History of Religions, May, 1995, Vol. 34, No. 4, The University of Chicago Press, p. 303-328.

Japan's most famous pilgrimage, originating in the 11th century, encompasses thirty-three Buddhist temples in Western Japan (Kansai region) dedicated to Kannon (bodhisattva Avalokitasvara), the Bodhisattva of Compassion, who hears the cries of the world and assists anyone in distress.

image source: Saigoku Travel Blog https://www.manpuku-verlag.de/englisch/blog/comment_ENG.php?comment=1 [accessed 1/4/2024]

The thirty-three temples on the approximately 1,000 kilometer pilgrimage route correspond to Kannon's ability to take on thirty-three different forms. One hundred thousand pilgrims navigate the route in its entirety or in part each year.

Note: For a listing of all thirty-three temples go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saigoku_Kannon_Pilgrimage [accessed 1-4-23]. To access an interactive map of the route and its temples go to https://www.thetempleguy.org/p/saigoku-33-kannon-route.html [accessed 1-4-23] and scroll down towards the bottom of the page.

"It is traditional for pilgrims to wear white clothing and conical straw hats and to carry walking sticks. While the route was historically traveled by foot, today pilgrims usually use cars or trains. Pilgrims record their progress with a prayer book (納経帖 Nōkyō-chō), which the temple staff mark with red stamps and Japanese calligraphy indicating the temple number, the temple name, and the specific name of the Kannon image. Some pilgrims receive the stamps and calligraphy on wall scrolls (for a decorative hanging) and on their white coats (to be cremated in) as well." It is customary for pilgrims to recite goeika (junrei uta) specific to each site upon entering.

Origin of the Saigoku Pilgrimage

The origin of the pilgrimage is largely unknown, although the retired emperor Kazan (968-1008) is popularly credited with founding (or reviving) the Saigoku Thirty-Three-Temple Kannon pilgrimage route. Yet, according to Professor of Religious Studies Mark MacWilliams, "despite the popular stories, there is no historical evidence linking the retired emperor with the origin of the route. Most scholars agree that the thirty-three-temple route originated at the end of the Heian period, at least a century after Kazan's death. In all likelihood, the actual founders of the route were two Tendai monk-ascetics from Mii-dera, Gyōson (1055-1135) and Kakuchu (1118-1177)."

Goeika - The Waka Poem-Prayers of Each Temple
By the mid-18th century the retired emperor Kazan was also credited with authoring the thirty-three waka poem-prayers (junrei uta or goeika), consisting of thirty-one syllables, which appear at the end of each temple entry and are the major devotional liturgy of the pilgrimage. (Note that the temple information sheets (appendices) accompanying Nakazawa's album of prints reproduce the junrei uta for each temple.) Again, MacWilliams tells us that the historical reality does not align with the popular understanding: "[N]one of the thirty-three junrei uta...are authored by Kazan. Most of the junrei uta were written anonymously over the centuries by ordinary Saigoku pilgrims."

"Picture Album of the Thirty-Three Pilgrimage Places

of the Western Provinces"

First issued in June 1925 and reprinted in January 1946, the 1925 album contained fifty-eight prints plus a table of contents and colophon (both printed on the same sheet of heavy brown cardboard, as shown below) and the reprinted 1946 album contained fifty-nine prints. In researching extant copies of prints from the two editions online, both in museum collections and offered for sale by art dealers, I have found that prints from the two editions are often conflated with each other. This collection does own what I believe to be a complete album of the 1925 original release* but, to date, I have not seen a complete 1946 release. In the below discussion I do my best to clarify the differences between the two releases, but additional research is necessary.

* see the artist's home page Nakazawa Hiromitsu (1874-1964).

Table of Prints in the Album

The Original 1925 Release

The 1925 release of this album by the publisher Kanao Tanejirō was one of the early manifestations of moving away from text-based sketch-tour guides in book form, in which illustrations played a secondary role (see this collection's book Kinai kenbutsu, Yamato (Nara) no maki) to more image-centric compilations of ōban-size single sheet woodblock prints accompanied by explanatory text. As noted by Scott Johnson,

[T]he sketch-tour books led directly to the more widely known genre of shin-hanga landscape prints. Although the landscape print movement attracted new artists and publishers, many of the figures active in the 'sketch-tour' book genre became pioneers in shin-hanga landscape prints. The popularity of these single-sheet prints ironically prompted the demise of the 'sketch-tour' books themselves.3

The 1925 Original Release

(click on an image for enlargement)