Ginza, which developed as a center of Western culture in Japan after the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, is captured here in neat lines and bright colors. Street of Ginza A depicts the Sayegusa clothing store that was located at Ginza 3-chome at the time. The exterior of the store has been faithfully recorded almost exactly as it was, but judging from the 50-plus sketches the artist made throughout this area, the picture also includes trees and store flags that were actually located elsewhere. From the sketches we can see that the flag saying “Mountain and Marine Goods on Sale,” which here looks out of place in front of a stylish imported clothes store, was actually standing outside the athletic equipment store Mizuno. Nakajima Kiyoshi wasn’t just trying to capture the scenery of this progressive shopping district, but was reassembling multiple sketches in collages to create a one-of-a-kind pictorial world.
(UCHIYAMA Junko)
Ginza, which developed as a center of Western culture in Japan after the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, is captured here in neat lines and bright colors. Street of Ginza A depicts the Sayegusa clothing store that was located at Ginza 3-chome at the time. The exterior of the store has been faithfully recorded almost exactly as it was, but judging from the 50-plus sketches the artist made throughout this area, the picture also includes trees and store flags that were actually located elsewhere. From the sketches we can see that the flag saying “Mountain and Marine Goods on Sale,” which here looks out of place in front of a stylish imported clothes store, was actually standing outside the athletic equipment store Mizuno. Nakajima Kiyoshi wasn’t just trying to capture the scenery of this progressive shopping district, but was reassembling multiple sketches in collages to create a one-of-a-kind pictorial world.
(UCHIYAMA Junko)