SUBURU (The Pleiades)
- Medium:
- Woodblock print
- Edition:
- Self-printed
- Source:
- wbp
Description
The Pleiades — the star cluster known in Japanese as Subaru (also the name of the famous automobile company that adopted its symbol) — appear in Kitaoka's celestial series as a tight grouping of bright points against the night sky. The Pleiades have been meaningful to cultures worldwide for millennia, and in Japanese they carry associations ranging from agricultural calendars to poetic imagery of cold, clear autumn nights. Kitaoka's version renders the cluster as a formal element within his modernist celestial vocabulary.
More Prints by Fumio Kitaoka
More Night Scenes Prints
Evening in East Africa
Woodblock print
Evening Shower at Teradomari (Teradomari no yau), from the series "Souvenirs of Travel, Second Series (Tabi miyage dai nishu)"
Teradomari no yau
1921
Color woodblock print; oban
![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
Featured in Collections
Curated cross-cuts that include this print.
Frequently Asked Questions
SUBURU (The Pleiades) was created by Fumio Kitaoka (北岡文雄).
SUBURU (The Pleiades) depicts night scenes and abstract.