Japanese Animation and New Media
Week Six: Chapter Ten: Structures of Depth
Let’s return to Edo art and explore the question of perspective and structure. We have already seen one of Murakami Takashi’s prime examples from the first superflat catalog, which juxtaposes stills from the animated television series Galaxy Express 999 and an ukiyo-e print from Hokusai’s Thirty-Six Views of Mt Fuji. So Hokusai is a good place to ask about perspective and structure.
Edo artists like Hokusai were aware of one-point perspective. They sometimes experimented with it, as in this other print from Hokusai’s Thirty-Six Views of Mt Fuji, which depicts a bridge and river embankments in accordance with the vanishing point and scalar proportions of one-point perspective.
Note, however, the object to be viewed, Mt Fuji, is not at the vanishing point. It is off center or ‘eccentric.’ This reminds us that the image is not structured exclusively around one-point perspective. In fact, when Edo artists experimented with one-point perspective, they did not tend to use it as a unitary structuring principle. Sometimes they would include more than one vanishing point. Sometimes they would combine it with other techniques and structures of depth, as in the above Hokusai print, in which we simultaneously see another sort of perspective, sometimes referred to as ‘orthogonal perspective.’
Another ukiyo-e from Hokusai’s Thirty-Six Views of Mt Fuji in which Mt Fuji is neatly framed in the hoop of a barrel is good example for understanding orthogonal perspective. Although Mt Fuji is framed, the image is not organized around one-point perspective. It sets up a strong diagonal or orthogonal view, but there is no vanishing point. The way in which hoop of the barrel is drawn confirms the absence of one-point perspective. Compare it with the bridge and riverbanks in the image above. If the hoop were drawn in accordance with one-point perspective, the sides of the barrel would appear to converge, however slightly. But they do not. The depth of the barrel hoop is not that of one-point perspective. Rather it follows the strong orthogonal lines of the composition. As such, the framing of Mt Fuji feels accidental. It does not have the feel of one-point perspective. It is not like looking through a telescope, taking Mt Fuji as the object of vision in advance. In fact, because of the different layers of image, Mt Fuji feels somewhat independent of the barrel-framed view. This is an instance of orthogonal perspective: parallel orthogonal lines as a technique of composition.
