Earth's Surface
- Medium:
- Woodblock print
- Edition:
- Self-printed
- Source:
- Art Gallery of Greater Victoria
Description
"Earth's surface" takes as its subject the very ground itself — not landscape viewed from a distance, but the close-up texture and topology of soil, rock, and terrain examined as abstract form. Kitaoka reduces the subject to pattern and color: the varied textures of earth compressed into geometric zones of color, the surface of the world becoming a field of pure mark-making. It is a subject that pushes his landscape practice to its most abstract extreme, where the referent and the formal resolution are nearly indistinguishable.
More Prints by Fumio Kitaoka
More Landscapes Prints
Lake Kugushi in Wakasa Province (Wakasa Kugushiko), from the series Souvenirs of Travel I (Tabi miyage dai isshu)"
Wakasa Kugushiko
1920
Color woodblock print; oban
Autumn Maple Leaves at Takao, from the album Eight Views of Kyoto (Kyôto hakkei)
Woodblock print
The Beach at Kaiganji in Sanuki Province (Sanuki Kaiganji no hama), from the series "Collection of Views of Japan II, Kansai Edition (Nihon fukei shu II Kansai hen)"
1934
Color woodblock print; oban
Tea Kettle, section of a sheet from the series "Mirror of Stone Rubbings of Views of the Provinces" (Kohon meihitsu ishizuri kagami)
n.d.
Woodblock print; ishizuri-e, section of harimaze sheet
Featured in Collections
Curated cross-cuts that include this print.
Frequently Asked Questions
Earth's Surface was created by Fumio Kitaoka (北岡文雄).
Earth's Surface depicts landscapes and abstract.