Itsukushima Shinto Shrine - Arnold Genthe Art Print

Six hours ago this sand was sea. Arnold Genthe catches the Itsukushima Shinto Shrine gate in the brief window when the ebb tide lets feet go where only boats belong. The island was long revered as a kami's body, so the shrine rose on stilts over water and pilgrims rowed through this torii to reach it.

Shellfish gatherers crouch in the tideflat, hands working the silt. A white-clad figure strolls out from under the ryobu torii, whose four support legs brace it like scaffolding for a ship never launched. Taira no Kiyomori's twelfth-century patronage shaped this shrine, but the camphor trunks in this photograph date from 1875 and still wear their modern bark.

Slate gray cloud presses down on the hills. A rope slices the lower right corner. In the pool the gate flips and wobbles, its roof beam a boat drifting on silver.

The mainland hills across Hiroshima Bay blur into pictorialist soft focus. Then the tidal pool takes over. Pillars sink into silver ripples. Drawn from Genthe's glass plate negatives, this black and white Japan art print ends with the floating torii upside down in a puddle, waiting for the sea to come home.