Ryoya, the expression used in the Japanese title, describes a beautiful, early autumn evening with a bright moon. From the shadows on this woman’s fair skin, we can guess that a brilliant moon shines above her in the sky. With her sharp features, the woman seems to be throwing up her arms and charging her body with the energy of the moon. Her naked body, sketched in thick outlines and a simplified shape, entails a sense of primitive vitality. Around this time, Ogura Yuki was pursuing new methods of expression by distorting and reducing shapes to their most simplified extremes. She commented that drawing things accurately becomes too rational an exercise, whereas if you distort, the shapes “are a lie, but they become true,” and that such distortion is essential to give the painting a sense of reality.
(UCHIYAMA Junko)
Ryoya, the expression used in the Japanese title, describes a beautiful, early autumn evening with a bright moon. From the shadows on this woman’s fair skin, we can guess that a brilliant moon shines above her in the sky. With her sharp features, the woman seems to be throwing up her arms and charging her body with the energy of the moon. Her naked body, sketched in thick outlines and a simplified shape, entails a sense of primitive vitality. Around this time, Ogura Yuki was pursuing new methods of expression by distorting and reducing shapes to their most simplified extremes. She commented that drawing things accurately becomes too rational an exercise, whereas if you distort, the shapes “are a lie, but they become true,” and that such distortion is essential to give the painting a sense of reality.
(UCHIYAMA Junko)