Building number 2, the site of the Aizu Mueseum, used to be the Waseda University library. In those days, the president of the university, Mr. Takada Wanae, who was a trustee of the Institute of Japanese Art, commissioned this epic work from Taikan and Kanzan. The university paid 3,000 yen in commission. At that time, tuition for Waseda University was 140 yen (for the school of liberal arts). The paper is mostly mulberry, mixed with some linen and kanbi (a Japanese plant fiber). It took between thirty and forty workers to strain the fiber. This alone would be enough to make this work worth keeping in a museum, and paper prepared this way is kept in the Gutenberg Museum. The cost for the paper-making equipment alone was 2,000 yen. For the actual painting of the work, special extra large paintbrushes were used, along with large buckets for the paint and large swathes of blotting paper. 1,000 yen worth of gold paint, made from gold provided by the university, was used. The two artists contributed different parts to the painting. Kanzan painted the sun, the “light” part of the piece, and Taikan painted the landscape and clouds, the “darkness.” The piece can be interpreted as representing a dark world progressing towards enlightenment. Many important people from all over came to watch the painting be hung over the staircase in the main hall of Building 2.