
Sunset town
- Medium:
- Mokuhanga (Japanese woodblock)
- Image courtesy of
- Saru Gallery
Description
A townscape illuminated by the warm chromatic register of evening, Sunset town renders Japanese architecture — likely traditional rooflines and narrow streets — using crisp keyblock outlines registered against graduated bokashi washes that suggest the atmospheric envelope of sunset. The mokuhanga technique allows for the layering of warm reds, oranges, and violets that characterize twilight light, each color requiring its own block carved in cherry wood and printed in sequence onto washi. This urban subject expands beyond Okamoto's typical botanical focus, situating him within the broader contemporary sosaku-hanga interest in townscape and place. The composition likely emphasizes the play of shadow and light across building facades, the silhouetting of rooftops against a luminous sky, and the quiet stillness that accompanies the transition from day to night in a small Japanese settlement. The work extends the long tradition of meisho-e into a contemporary, atmospheric register.
More Prints by Ryusei Okamoto
More Urban Scenes Prints

A Hundred Shades of Ink of Edo: Kiyonaga's Pipe (Edo zumi hyaku shoku: Kiyonaga no kiseru)
Woodblock print

View of Kabuki Theater from Matsuya (Ginza Matsuya yori Kabukiza), no. 3 from the series "Pictures of Ginza, First Series (Gashu Ginza dai isshu)"
1928
Color lithograph

Distant View of Mitsukoshi Movie Theater in Shinjuku from the Sixth Floor of Hoteiya (Hoteiya rokkai kara Shinjuku Mitsukoshi Musashi no kan enbo zu), no. 1 from the series "Scenery of Shinjuku (Gashu Shinjuku fukei)"
1930
Color lithograph

Spring Dusk at the Tōshō Shrine in Ueno
1948
Woodblock print, ink and color on paper
Frequently Asked Questions
Sunset town was created by Ryusei Okamoto (岡本隆生).
Sunset town depicts urban scenes.



