High Noon
by Ito Shinsui
- Date:
- 1937
- Medium:
- Woodblock print, ink and color on paper
- Format:
- Oban
- Dimensions:
- 26.7 × 39.7 cm
- Publisher:
- Watanabe Shozaburo
by Ito Shinsui
Shinsui's extensive oeuvre spans bijin-ga, landscapes, and genre subjects. Auction averages over 12 months reflect healthy collector demand across all subject types.
The stark overhead light of midday—high noon (seichuu or mahiru), when shadows disappear directly beneath their objects and the sky is at its most intensely blue—is the subject of this 1937 landscape. Shinsui's interest in this specific time of day, at the opposite extreme from his more typical dawn, dusk, and evening subjects, suggests a desire to explore the full range of light conditions across the diurnal cycle. High noon's qualities—hard light, no shadow, maximum visibility—created compositional challenges quite different from the atmospheric subtleties of transitional lighting.
Wakasa Kugushiko
1920
Color woodblock print; oban
Woodblock print
1934
Color woodblock print; oban
n.d.
Woodblock print; ishizuri-e, section of harimaze sheet
Curated cross-cuts that include this print.
High Noon was created by Ito Shinsui (伊東深水) in 1937.
High Noon was published by Watanabe Shozaburo (1937).
High Noon depicts landscapes and summer.
High Noon measures 26.7 × 39.7 cm (Oban format).
