In the early 1920s, Kishida suddenly expressed a new interest for nihonga, incorporating elements from eastern art, in particular Chinese paintings of the Song and Yuan dynasties, as well as early "ukiyo-e" paintings. His home in Kugenuma was destroyed by the Great Kantō earthquake of 1923, and he moved to Kyoto for a brief period before moving to Kamakura in February 1926. In the 1920s, he came to be noted as an art historian as well as a painter, writing numerous articles on Aesthetics and Japanese painting.