Wander in Kyoto: Visual Analysis of The Neighborhood of Kyoto Muromachi

Yamamoto, Tomokatsu. The Neighborhood of Kyoto Muromachi, 1957, Woodblock Print. Museum of Anthropology in University of Birtish Columbia, Vancouver.

The collection from the Museum of Anthropology in University of British Columbia The Neighborhood of Kyoto Muromachi (1957) by Nihon-ga painter Tomokatsu Yamamoto is a Japanese woodblock print depicts the night street scene with shops and figures in Kyoto during Muromachi age. Tomokatsu Yamamoto, as a contemporary Japanese artist, focused on elaborating the daily life of Japanese people within a variety of social levels, especially the quotidian image of suburban street view. Tomokatsu inherits the most original method of Japanese woodblock printing techniques with a fusion of western-style composition and organization, thus become one of the most prestigious artists in Japan.

Woodblock printing in Japan (mokuhanga) is a technique applied in ukiyo-e artistic genre emerged from Edo period and is best-known for its delicate depiction on subtle details in subjects’ features, expressions, and surroundings. The Neighborhood of Kyoto Muromachi perfectly embodied the stereotypical style of ukiyo-e genre through its applied lines, shapes, colors, and space. As the lines and shapes are relatively simple and straightforward in woodblock print(due to the limitation brought by its carving technique), in The Neighborhood of Kyoto Muromachi, there are no soft transitions in shapes but all cropped to give an edge, which strengthened the sense of flatness of its surface: the planes and angles of the buildings along the street are all composed of simple geometric forms, figures scattered on the pavement are captured in few lines and curves, notwithstanding vividly illustrated. This choice of super-flattened surface brought to me a sense in which Tomokatsu’s rendering of the figurations here are more a model-like object than real existence. Together with artist’s selection of colors, the quality of the emptiness is created.

In regard to artist’s choice of color, the overall image is infused in cold tone. The intensive use of navy blue and pale gray colors indicate the night scene that makes its viewer experience the chilly weather: all of the architectures are tinted in dim gray with navy blue shades coming out from the eaves, while the curtains hanging in front of each residence are as same color as the bluish shades. Wandering people are all dressed in cobalt and navy kimonos with their face painted in ghostly pale white, echo with the dominant hue of the image. On the contrary, there are brightly lit windows of shops and dwellings that spill warm, yellow light out onto the street, casting shadows on the passerby, which are supposed to deliver warmth and dynamic, yet enhance the sense of stillness and therefore balanced the overwhelmingly coldness of the space.

Since colors used in woodblock print are often solid and clear with very less volume and gradations, a  sense of flatness is presented through the surface. Correspondingly, the space of the painting is designed to maintain depth and extensiveness. The intended leftover space on the top right and bottom right corner of The Neighborhood of Kyoto Muromachi brings the sense of absence—the small glow of the moonlight hanging in the sky emitting faint color; figures on the pavement are though scattered, yet facing different directions, remaining isolation from others. The artist also adopts linear perspective (from western painting technique), hence creates spatial depth through visual perspective: it seems to be an street with infinite length, where the female dressed in dark navy kimono(on the right side) is coming from the endless, while the female alongside her,  caring a ponderous baggage, is going into the endless. At this instant, I find myself baptized in this endless sense of hollow, suddenly the picture seems frozen into a still world with extreme silence.

To conclude, The Neighborhood of Kyoto Muromachi has perfectly combined conventional method of Japanese ukiyo-e technique and western approach of composition into the print image. It creates the sense of space and expansiveness through its applied lines, shapes, colors and composition. Tomokatsu Yamamoto’s painting maintained conventional figurative interpretations and placed formal qualities on the level of explicit subject matters, in the way to meet the standard of ukiyo-e painting. At the same time, the artist built a emotion-oriented aura for a sympathetic conversation with its audience. Although artworks within such themes not often come with a sensory implication, The Neighborhood of Kyoto Muromachi provides an open-ended discussion which allows a broader variety of interpretation from its spectators.