Edo

A late Edo timber fence at Muko Shrine in Kyoto, 17 metres long, turning at a right angle from the Tenmangu hall and finished with carved bracket noses.

A tiled timber enclosure of 1842 at Muko Shrine in Kyoto. Fifty-two metres of plain lattice fence wrap the main hall, pierced by two gates with openwork carving.

A 20-metre timber wall in Kumiyama, Kyoto, registered in 2010. Sharing a cut-stone base with the gate, it holds the street frontage of an Edo headman's compound.

A late Edo gatehouse in Kumiyama, Kyoto, registered in 2010. Its 27-metre plastered front, barred windows and crest tiles mark the rank of a village headman.

This northwest storehouse at the Yamanaka oil shop in Kamigyo Ward, Kyoto dates from the 1820s and was registered in 2007. Earthen walls guarded a flammable stock.

Registered in 2007, this late Edo townhouse in Kamigyo Ward, Kyoto keeps its folding display bench and plaster-barred attic windows, and still trades as an oil shop.

Rakushisha in Saga, Kyoto, a thatched hut that goes back to the hermitage of Basho's disciple Kyorai and was rebuilt in 1770, is where Basho wrote his Saga Diary.

A late Edo yakuimon gate at Renjoji in Miyama, Kyoto, 2.3 meters wide, with a plain front of rectangular posts and large carved kaerumata braces on its sides.

A small late Edo belfry at Renjoji in Miyama, Kyoto, with inward-leaning posts tied by two tiers of beams, boarded sides and a curved beam carrying the bell.

Renjoji's Banshin Hall of 1828 in Miyama, Kyoto, sets five Shinto god shelves behind a Buddhist altar, giving form to the Nichiren cult of Thirty Guardian Deities.

Built in 1799, this thatched hip-and-gable hall at Renjoji in Miyama joins a six-room worship hall to the priest's quarters, with a memorial-tablet hall at the rear.

Yuan Chan master Yunfeng Miaogao's 1284 colophon on a calligraphy by his dharma ancestor Dahui Zonggao. An Important Cultural Property at Kyoto's Kitamura Museum.

Discover the National Treasure bokuseki calligraphy by Chinese Chan master Xutang Zhiyu, preserved at Daitoku-ji temple in Kyoto. Learn about its Zen heritage, tea ceremony significance, and how to view this masterpiece.

Discover the National Treasure bokuseki by Yuan-dynasty Zen master Gulin Qingmao, bestowed upon his Japanese disciple Getsurin Dōkō in 1327. Now deposited at Kyoto National Museum, this masterpiece of Zen calligraphy embodies centuries of cross-cultural spiritual exchange between China and Japan.

Discover the Important Cultural Property "Dōto" — two powerful characters by Chinese Chan monk Gekkan Bunmei, housed at Shōkoku-ji's Jōtenkaku Museum in Kyoto. Learn about bokuseki (Zen calligraphy), its meaning, and how to visit.

A National Treasure of Shōjōke-in, Kyoto: a Southern Song Amida triad in three signed scrolls by the Ningbo painter Fuetsu, now held at the Kyoto National Museum.

Ninna-ji's National Treasure Kujaku Myōō, a Song-dynasty Chinese painting, shows the Peacock Wisdom King with three faces and six arms on a white peacock.

Two Southern Song scrolls at Kyoto's Konchi-in, the Autumn and Winter Landscapes are a National Treasure once owned by the Ashikaga shoguns and ascribed to Huizong.

Two Southern Song ink landscapes attributed to Li Tang at Kotoin, Daitokuji, Kyoto, a National Treasure since 1952; the temple is closed in 2026.

Discover Muqi's "Kannon, Monkeys and Cranes" — a 13th-century Southern Song masterpiece and one of Japan's most revered National Treasures, held at Daitoku-ji in Kyoto. A cornerstone of the Ashikaga shogunate's Higashiyama Gyomotsu collection, this three-scroll ink painting will be a headline exhibit at the Tokyo National Museum's 2026 Daitoku-ji 700th anniversary exhibition.