Psience Quest

The Haunting Beauty of the Reconsecration of Shinto Shrines

Jessica Leigh Hester

Photographer Yukihito Masuura spent more than a decade documenting rituals that connect past and present.

Quote:Across the series, the themes of change and continuity sit alongside each other. They’re especially clear in a photograph printed as a panorama on washi paper. The shrine, in the background, is in crisp focus, while the procession in the foreground is blurry, almost ghostly. It seems to suggest that the priests and the tradition simultaneously stretch into the past and wrap toward the future.

(2019-04-23, 02:14 PM)Sciborg_S_Patel Wrote: [ -> ]The Haunting Beauty of the Reconsecration of Shinto Shrines

Jessica Leigh Hester

Photographer Yukihito Masuura spent more than a decade documenting rituals that connect past and present.

I think it's difficult for the camera to compete with the 19th-century artists in that respect:

[Image: Hiroshige.jpg]
Utagawa Hiroshige (Ando) (Japanese, 1797-1858). Kumano Junisha Shrine, Tsunohazu, No. 50 in One Hundred Famous Views of Edo, 7th month of 1856. Woodblock print, Sheet: 14 3/16 x 9 3/16 in. (36 x 23.3 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Anna Ferris, 30.1478.50 (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 30.1478.50_PS1.jpg)