The Floating World

Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku sanjūrokkei)

Lower Meguro

下目黒 · Shimo Meguro

Katsushika Hokusai · c. 1830–32

What it is

Farmers work terraced fields among the rolling hills of Lower Meguro, and Fuji peeks out between the slopes.

Why it matters

Hokusai gives this view of the farmland outside Edo to the people who worked it.

What to notice

The hills are rounded, overlapping shapes, and the mountain appears in the gap between two of them almost by accident.

In the countryside the mountain is a neighbour, glimpsed over the shoulder.

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 · JP1286

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

The road at your moment — Painted Earth’s ukiyo-e style pack.