Hokusai from A to Z
A = Red Fuji: He took the world by storm with the great wave and Mount Fuji from his Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji series!
Hokusai’s most famous works are the ‘Great Wave (大波)’ and ‘Red Fuji (赤富士).’ Both are part of his Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (冨嶽三十六景) series. The Great Wave is the popular ‘The Great Wave off Kanagawa (神奈川沖浪裏),’ which is well known abroad. Red Fuji is also famous as ‘Fine Wind, Clear Morning (凱風快晴).’ It gets its name, ‘Red Fuji,’ from the reddish colour of Mount Fuji bathed in the morning sun.
The ‘Great Wave’: Hokusai’s Iconic Masterpiece
Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji is a series of 46 prints on the theme of Mount Fuji that Hokusai worked on when he was 72. Of all the works, only ‘Thunderstorm Beneath the Summit (山下白雨)’ and this piece feature Mount Fuji so prominently in the composition.
With its bold composition and the interesting colours of the mountain’s surface, Red Fuji became particularly popular.
Another masterpiece featuring Mount Fuji prominently: ‘Thunderstorm Beneath the Summit’
Hokusai’s first encounter with Mount Fuji was in his early 50s. He made sketches of the mountain from various locations as he travelled to places like Koshu (甲州) and Nagoya (名古屋).
Approximately 20 years later, he used these accumulated sketches to create Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji. The series was a massive hit, thanks to its interesting compositions, powerful impact, and beautiful printing, all of which coincided with a travel boom at the time.
This is ‘Red Fuji’ in the title
In fact, before this, ukiyo-e primarily featured portraits. The reason Hokusai chose to depict landscapes, which had previously only served as backgrounds for people, has an interesting backstory.
In his late 30s, Hokusai received a request for paintings from a Dutch person. It was then that he saw Dutch landscape paintings and realised that landscapes could be a subject in their own right.
Early in his career, Hokusai also painted theatrical scenes
Because of his unique approach, many of the scenes in Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji are difficult to identify.
Red Fuji is one of them; it’s unclear whether the view is from the Shizuoka (静岡) or Yamanashi (山梨) side.
A genius who manipulated composition with ease!
The reason for this is that Hokusai didn’t just paint what he saw.
Hokusai’s greatest landscape masterpieces were compositions carefully constructed from his sketches, designed to create more unusual compositions and visual effects. They were landscapes that Hokusai had envisioned in his mind.
