Aerial: Night
by Ansei Uchima
- Date:
- 1964
- Medium:
- Color woodblock print
- Edition:
- Self-printed
- Source:
- Art Institute of Chicago
by Ansei Uchima
$500–$4,000. Snow and night scenes tend to command premium prices for this artist. Key value factors: Uchima's luminous landscape prints appeal to collectors of both Japanese prints and modern American art.
Aerial: Night (1964) presents a nocturnal landscape seen from above — a viewpoint that transforms familiar terrain into abstract pattern. The aerial perspective eliminates horizon lines and conventional spatial orientation, leaving the viewer suspended over a field of darkness punctuated by scattered light. Uchima's color woodblock technique renders this nightscape through layered transparent inks, building depth not through perspective but through the cumulative effect of overprinted color. The "aerial" of the title suggests both physical altitude and a quality of lightness, the composition floating free of gravitational reference while the darkness carries the specific weight of night.
Woodblock print
Teradomari no yau
1921
Color woodblock print; oban
![Mount Fuji on a Moonlit Night, Kawai Bridge (Tsukiyo no Fuji [Kawaibashi]), from the series "Selection of Views of the Tokaido (Tokaido fukei senshu)" by Kawase Hasui](https://www.artic.edu/iiif/2/d0960668-1e73-339a-b182-fb995a54bff0/full/843,/0/default.jpg)
1947
Color woodblock print; oban
March 1933
Color woodblock print; oban
Curated cross-cuts that include this print.
Aerial: Night was created by Ansei Uchima (内間安瑆) in 1964.
Aerial: Night depicts night scenes.
