Kawanabe Kyōsai’s works are full of social satire. But that’s not what I want to focus on. Kawanabe Kyōsai’s works depict demons. The deliberately gray lighting in the exhibition hall makes this even more eerie. The black walls are vaguely mixed with the feeling of white, making people feel like they are in the middle of an ink painting.
There is an interesting phenomenon in Kawanabe Kyōsai’s work. The paper on which he paints is also a part of his artistic creation. In Crow on a branch and Crow on a branch at night, the colors of the paper are replaced to achieve a different feeling of day and night. In Kawanabe Kyōsai, the specially selected silk is used as the paper to add an eerie touch to the slim woman herself.
This method of varying the material to achieve different effects made me think of the use of plywood. By using new materials, the otherwise hard and complex wooden furniture appears soft and simple.