$2,000–$8,000. Smaller works: $2,000–$3,500. Key value factors: Brayer's unique luminous technique on handmade washi appeals to collectors of both Japanese prints and contemporary art.
Named for the moon, this mokuhanga print explores the quality of lunar light as it falls on the Kyoto landscape. Brayer renders moonlight as a cool, silvery luminosity that transforms familiar surfaces into unfamiliar terrain, bleaching color and sharpening shadows. The single-word title elevates the subject from a specific moonlit scene to a meditation on the moon as a light source, with all the cultural weight that the moon carries in Japanese aesthetics. Tsukimi, or moon-viewing, is a deeply rooted practice in Japan, and the moon appears throughout the country's literary and visual traditions as a symbol of beauty, impermanence, and contemplative solitude. Brayer's abstract treatment strips away narrative context, focusing purely on the phenomenological experience of seeing by moonlight.
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.
Luna was created by Sarah Brayer in Not set.
Luna depicts landscapes, moonlight, and night scenes.
