The style and motifs of artworks with Buddhist themes greatly developed in modern Japan. Starting from the Meiji period, the investigation and rediscovery of Japanese Buddhist sculptures and temples stimulated many artists to create new artworks with Buddhist themes. In the Taisho Period, however, art critics began to question whether artworks with Buddhist themes could fulfill the needs of modern society. This paper uses the famous modern Japanese Buddhist painter Dōmoto Inshō's Kegon (1925) as a case study, examining the iconography and style of this painting and the reception of this work by audiences and critics in order to shed new light on contemporaneous debates on the value of modern Buddhist art.