Japanese 5 Yen Bill from 1946

Prior to reading the article “Do you have change for a Bowie”, I had no idea that there were forms of currency based on art. What visually struck me the most was the intial photo of the bill with psychedelic artwork and geometrical shapes/patterns that were present in the piece. The colors were visually stunning and blended in together nicely. After viewing this, I wanted to find a piece that had a similiar feel, but perhaps from a less modern era to see how artistic currency looked in the past and how it has evolved today. For this post, I chose a Japanese 5 Yen Bill from 1946. One of the reasons I chose this currency was because I am familiar with the japanese yen and also, it fit my timeline of trying to find a piece that was significantly older than the ones featured in the article. What is amazing is that the symmetry and geometry in this Japanese bill is extremely similiar to the modern psychedelic one. You can see the lines weaving in and out of one another forming shapes and are perfectly symmetrical. It is incredible to see the similiarities in these art pieces given that they are from different parts of the worlds from different eras. I believe that symmetry has a huge role to play in the creation of currency. The eye must be drawn to different elements across the piece (such as the corners/sides for the number amount, the middle for a face or logo). All these pieces of artistic data must be shown but also balanced to provide a wholistic and complete feel to the currency. In this Japanese yen bill, you can see the symmetry layed out with the number 5 on each side to signify its worth, the center text balances the numbers out. Then, the beautiful geometric pattern completes the piece by joining everything together. The look is simplistic and beautiful. The psychedelic piece featured in “Do you have change for a Bowie” is so ver different, yet similiar to this piece and I love that and find it to be absolutely fascinating.