Bats in Moonlight
Sold – no longer available
This piece was a handmade one-of-a-kind work. It cannot be reordered and will never exist in this form again. The page stays online as part of our archive.
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Details about the sold piece
- Height 190 cm
- Width 45 cm
- Item Type Kakemono
- Jikusaki Wood
- Material Honshi Paper
- Period of Creation Meiji (1868–1912)
- Technique Hand-Painted
- Unique Work Yes
No longer available
Description
Against a slender crescent moon, the filigree branches of a willow stand out in silhouette, through which - barely perceptible in the twilight - bats trace their nocturnal paths. The atmospheric composition, kept in subdued tones of gray, draws its life from the tension between light and dark, between the visible and the merely suggested.
Unlike in the West, bats are regarded in East Asian symbolism as a highly positive motif: the Chinese and Japanese word for bat sounds similar to the word for good fortune, which is why depictions of these nocturnal creatures were traditionally considered bringers of luck and were popular as gifts.
The hanging scroll is painted on paper, the roller fitted with wooden end knobs, and the work was created in the Meiji period. With its poetic, faintly mysterious nocturnal atmosphere, this hanging scroll is an unusual yet meaningful motif for collectors who, alongside the classical subjects, also value symbolically charged works of Japanese painting.
