The Night Fortune Teller
- Medium:
- Woodblock print
- Source:
- Japanese Art Open Database
- Image courtesy of
- Japanese Art Open Database
Description
This print extends Nakao Yoshitaka's interest in the fortune teller as subject into a nocturnal setting, introducing darkness as both a literal and atmospheric condition. Street fortune tellers working by lamplight or lantern were a feature of postwar Japanese urban life, and the night setting allows Nakao to structure the composition around the interplay of artificial light against deep shadow. His printing technique — which could produce velvety, porous darks through his cement-block matrices and hand-worked woodblock surfaces — would be well suited to rendering the contrast between the illuminated figure and surrounding darkness. The print belongs to a thematic pair with his 1957 Fortune Teller and likely shares its interest in marginal social figures and the atmosphere of urban nightlife. The nocturnal framing adds an element of mystery consonant with the fortune teller's role as intermediary between the known and the unknown.
![[Grey Figure Posing] by Nakao Yoshitaka](https://1.api.artsmia.org/800/135848.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)" by Kawase Hasui](https://www.artic.edu/iiif/2/d0960668-1e73-339a-b182-fb995a54bff0/full/843,/0/default.jpg)
