Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku sanjūrokkei)
Fuji from the Katakura Tea Fields in Suruga
駿州片倉茶園の不二 · Sunshū Katakura chaen no Fuji
Katsushika Hokusai · c. 1830–32
What it is
Workers pick tea and carry baskets along the rows at Katakura in Suruga, with a snow-covered Fuji filling the sky behind them.
Why it matters
One of the ten added designs, it brings the mountain close for once: a white cone over the working fields.
What to notice
The rounded tea bushes repeat in rows across the foreground, and their curves belong to the same family as the mountain’s flanks.
Work done close to the ground can still happen in sight of something enormous.
The record
- Artist
- Katsushika Hokusai 葛飾北斎 (1760–1849)
- Series
- Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku sanjūrokkei)
- Date
- c. 1830–32
- Publisher
- Nishimuraya Yohachi (Eijudō)
- Medium
- woodblock print; ink and color on paper
- Source
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art · JP2955
Impression note. The series sold well and was printed in large numbers. The first sheets lean on the newly imported Prussian blue, outlines included; later printings add colours and soften the key block. This is the largest clean open impression of the design the Met holds. Impression variance is real — printings differ in wiping and fading — and choosing the finest openly held impression is the curatorial act.
Public domain; faithfully reproduced.
Bring it home
Printed to order on EMA matte art paper, 200gsm.
From the same series
Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku sanjūrokkei)Under the Wave off Kanagawa (The Great Wave)Katsushika Hokusai · c. 1830–32
Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku sanjūrokkei)Fine Wind, Clear Morning (Red Fuji)Katsushika Hokusai · c. 1830–32
Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku sanjūrokkei)Thunderstorm Beneath the SummitKatsushika Hokusai · c. 1830–32
Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku sanjūrokkei)Kajikazawa in Kai ProvinceKatsushika Hokusai · c. 1830–32The road at your moment — Painted Earth’s ukiyo-e style pack.