Description
In The Palace in the Moon, Kitagawa Utamaro places an ornate floating palace high in a pale, horizontal composition. A boat rests alongside it, while a cloudlike sweep leads toward two figures at the lower right. Architecture and open space balance one another, giving the fanciful setting an air of spaciousness rather than crowding it with incident.
Dated to the eighth month of 1789, the work was made as an ink-and-color woodblock print. The precise architectural details make the imagined palace tangible, while the pale setting lets it seem suspended beyond ordinary surroundings. Utamaro draws the eye from the distant building toward the small figures below, joining a grand structure with a more intimate human scale. The print leaves room for imaginative looking without requiring its fantasy to become a literal landscape.
Reviews
There are no reviews yet.