Japanese Animation and New Media
Week Six: Chapter Ten: Structures of Depth
It is not surprising then to see similar perceptual operations in Murakami’s own work, such as the following painting, Rose Milk (1998), which features one of his cartoon characters, DOB, reputedly a combination of Doraemon, Sonic Hedgehog, and Mickey Mouse, and designed expressly for global popularity. Note how Murakami evokes the zigzag eccentric movement that he sees in Edo art in the splash of white. He also applies paint very carefully to eliminate as much as possible any sense of brushwork or texture, which enhances the sense of flatness. And because the background (red) and figure (white splash) are equally vibrant, the image eliminates a sense of depth, a sense that the background is behind the figure. The background comes to the fore. With this flattening of the relation between layers (what he calls suppressing the gap or interval between layers), Murakami brings depth to the surface of the image.
