Moon and Koi

Moon and Koi joins two motifs Kojima treats independently elsewhere in her oeuvre, and the pairing produces a vertically structured composition in which the disc of the moon presides over the carp's looping body in water below. The subject draws from the Tsukioka Yoshitoshi-era pictorial convention of nocturnal kacho-e, in which moonlit scenes acquire a quietened, reflective tone distinct from daylight imagery. Within Kojima's lithographic vocabulary, the work would render the moon as a clean white disc against cream paper or as a dark inversion, while the koi's patterned body provides the print's principal black mass, its curving arc anchoring the lower portion of the sheet. The high-contrast palette suits the night-sky reading and lets the koi's markings function as the composition's primary visual incident. The print belongs to a category of Kojima's work in which celestial and aquatic motifs are joined without literal naturalism — the moon does not need to be reflected in water for the relationship to register. The composition reflects her textile-designer's instinct for arranging discrete symbolic units in legible, balanced fields.