Junks and Yellow Sky

Cargo junks ride at anchor or move slowly across a harbor as the sky burns yellow behind them in this dramatic harbor scene by Yuhan Ito. The large-sailed wooden junks that worked the Japanese coastal trade were disappearing from the harbors of the 1930s as motorized vessels took over, and prints like this one carry an elegiac charge — documenting a working seascape that was already beginning to vanish. Ito captures the yellowed sky with unusual coloristic boldness, using it to backlight the dark silhouettes of the hulls and rigging.