Moonlight
- Medium:
- Woodblock print
- Edition:
- Self-printed
- Source:
- wbp
$500–$5,000. Snow and night scenes tend to command premium prices for this artist. Key value factors: Kitaoka's refined style has a modest but loyal collector base.
Moonlight falling on water or landscape creates conditions of heightened perception — the familiar world made strange by silver illumination, shadows deepened, colors drained to monochrome. Kitaoka's nocturnal composition reduces the moonlit scene to its essential contrast: the circular or near-circular presence of the moon, the vast surrounding darkness, the luminous reflection or illuminated surface below. It is a subject that has occupied Japanese artists for centuries, and Kitaoka situates his own version firmly within that tradition while giving it a modernist formal treatment.
![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
1919
Color woodblock print
January 1938
Woodblock print, ink and color on paper
Curated cross-cuts that include this print.
Moonlight was created by Fumio Kitaoka (北岡文雄).
Moonlight depicts moonlight and night scenes.
