Created in 1931, The Taj Mahal Gardens at Night is a color woodblock design for the India and Southeast Asia series. At night, the Taj Mahal’s marble mass is reduced to luminous planes beyond the dark garden. The design shifts attention from imperial detail to the emotional and atmospheric power of the monument’s symmetry.
In the design, Yoshida focuses on the Mughal mausoleum and its formal setting transformed by a specific condition of light. The restricted nocturnal palette turns illumination and shadow into the principal means of defining space. Subtle tonal transitions—effects for which Yoshida’s printing is especially admired—allow light and weather to reshape the same solid forms.
The India and Southeast Asia series grew from Yoshida’s travels of 1930–31 and is important to his sustained effort to translate architecture, landscape, and daily life encountered beyond Japan into color woodblock form.
Additional information
| Year Published | 1931 |
|---|---|
| Size | Ōban |
| Signed | Hiroshi Yoshida |
| Editions | Jizuri |
| Subjects | building, night, people, trees, water |
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