Moonlight

Moonlight depicts a nocturne — most likely a Kyoto landscape, garden, or rooftop view under a high moon. In mokuhanga the night sky is built from successive overprintings of dark blue, indigo, and sumi ink, each pass deepening the field while leaving the moon itself as a reserved circle of unprinted washi or a single pale impression. Bokashi gradations carry the eye outward from the moon into surrounding darkness, and the soft matte surface of water-based pigments avoids the glare that oil-based inks would produce. Stewart's nocturnes belong to a tradition that runs from Hiroshige's tsuki-no-de prints through Hasui and Yoshida's twentieth-century moonlit views, but his approach is closer to a quiet observational record than a dramatic shin-hanga set piece. The subject suits an artist who has chosen residence in Kyoto, a city whose temple grounds and narrow streets remain legible by moonlight in ways the modern day does not always permit. Moonlight pairs with Dawn and Sunrise as part of Stewart's hours-of-the-day cycle.