Photo Friday: Shaded
日光東照宮の手水舎を見上げると、屋根の陰に半ば呑まれた軒下にまで彫刻と金箔が施されていました。光の尽きるところまで、細工は続いています。
Even the temizuya — the humble pavilion where visitors rinse their hands before worship — is carved and gilded to the last bracket. Looking up beneath its eaves at Nikkō Tōshō-gū, the shrine to Tokugawa Ieyasu, I found ornament worked into surfaces most builders would have left plain. The shade of the roof half-swallows it, yet the detail keeps going where the light gives out.