Although the painting is titled Night Landscape, the sky is rendered in a pale blue rather than the darkness we usually associate with night. A white moon and small yellow stars float above the landscape.

The moon has long been a recurring image in Haruki Murakami's novels. In 1Q84, two moons appear in the sky, quietly suggesting that reality has shifted into something unfamiliar. In Kafka on the Shore, the moon repeatedly accompanies moments when the boundaries between memory, dreams, and reality become uncertain. Rather than functioning as a simple depiction of night, the moon often carries an emotional or psychological presence.

I find myself returning to the moon whenever I paint landscapes. For me, it represents not only nighttime but also Korea—a place I continue to long for, though perhaps more as a remembered landscape than a physical one.

While painting the foreground, I often thought about David Hockney's landscapes. His simplified forms and expansive planes of color encouraged me to reconsider how a landscape can be constructed through painting rather than observation. By coincidence, he passed away only a few days after I completed this painting.