Paris back window

"Paris back window" depicts an interior framed view through a rear apartment opening, almost certainly drawn from Kitaoka's European residencies — first in 1953–54 on a French government grant that took him to Paris, and again during subsequent extended stays. The motif of viewing the city from within a domestic interior allowed Kitaoka to combine the intimacy of still-life observation with the broader rooftop topography of Haussmann-era Paris: zinc chimney stacks, mansard slopes, and the patchwork of cours intérieures. As a [sosaku-hanga](/glossary/sosaku-hanga) printmaker working in the jiga, jikoku, jizuri tradition, Kitaoka cut and printed the block himself, likely employing [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) gradations to suggest the muted northern light filtering across the rooftops. The print belongs to the European group within his oeuvre, distinct from his Tokyo-school formative work and his later abstract Japanese landscapes, and reflects the postwar generation of Japanese printmakers who treated foreign cities as legitimate subjects for mokuhanga rather than as exotic novelties.