New England Landscape I 1927

Yasuo Kuniyoshi made this atmospheric landscape through some kind of printmaking process, I think, though I can only imagine what it must have been like to create it. The tonal range in the landscape moves from light to dark, suggesting perhaps an etching or lithograph, or maybe even a pencil drawing. The sky looks heavy, like a storm cloud or perhaps it’s night. The building on the right, with it’s simple gabled roof, and the church on the left, with its towering spire, look like they are set for a dark night ahead. I can imagine Kuniyoshi standing outside, breathing in the air, translating the three-dimensional world into a two-dimensional plane, and then making multiple copies of it. How weird is that? I like how the tree trunks at the front left are given a prominent position in the image, almost like we are hiding behind them, as if they are a curtain that separates us from the landscape. It makes me wonder what is so secretive about this scene?