The Face[s] of Tokyo No. 2

The numbered title indicates this print belongs to a series in which Kitaoka treated Tokyo through successive views or studies — a structural approach with deep roots in Japanese print tradition, from Hokusai's Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji to the [kacho-e](/glossary/kacho-e) and [meisho-e](/glossary/meisho-e) series that organized landscape and subject matter into sustained sequences. As No. 2 in the set, the print is one face among many, suggesting either a literal portrait of city inhabitants or a metaphorical view of one of the metropolis's districts and moods. Kitaoka's postwar Tokyo work typically combined direct observation with compositional structures drawn from his training under Fujishima Takeji at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts and his subsequent woodblock studies with Hiratsuka Un'ichi. Carved and printed by the artist himself in the [sosaku-hanga](/glossary/sosaku-hanga) manner, the block registers Tokyo not as scenic backdrop but as a city of distinct human and architectural presences arranged in serial form.