Before dawn on July 6, 1957, the five-storied pagoda at Tenno-ji Temple in Yanaka, Taito Ward, Tokyo, made famous by Koda Rohan’s novel Five-storied Pagoda (1892), was burned to the ground in a double suicide. Hearing this, Yokoyama apparently rushing to the site, and quickly sketched the tragic form of the pagoda, which had been reduced to a charred skeleton. Conveying the impression he felt at the time, Yokoyama captured the structure head-on in this large-scale painting. His way of boldly trimming the sides of the work can be seen as a compositional device to enliven the scene through the presence of the pagoda, which soars upward.