Moonlight
- Medium:
- Woodblock print
- Edition:
- Self-printed
- Source:
- wbp
Description
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.
More Prints by Fumio Kitaoka
More Moonlight Prints
![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)
Mount Fuji on a Moonlit Night, Kawai Bridge (Tsukiyo no Fuji [Kawaibashi]), from the series "Selection of Views of the Tokaido (Tokaido fukei senshu)"
1947
Color woodblock print; oban
Evening Moon at Nakanoshima, Sapporo (Sapporo Nakanoshima no yuzuki), from the series "Collection of Views of Japan, Eastern Japan Edition (Nihon fukei shu higashi Nihon hen)"
March 1933
Color woodblock print; oban
Matsushima in Moonlight (Tsuki no Matsushima)
1919
Color woodblock print
Kiyozumi Garden in Moonlight
January 1938
Woodblock print, ink and color on paper
Featured in Collections
Curated cross-cuts that include this print.
Frequently Asked Questions
Moonlight was created by Fumio Kitaoka (北岡文雄).
Moonlight depicts moonlight and night scenes.