Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji
Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji is a series of landscape prints by the Japanese ukiyo-e artist Hokusai. The series depicts Mount Fuji from different locations and in various seasons and weather conditions. Despite its name, it actually consists of 46 prints, with 10 of them being added after the initial publication.
The series was produced from to 1832, when Hokusai was in his seventies and at the height of his career, and published by Nishimura Yohachi. Among the prints are three of Hokusai's most famous: The Great Wave off Kanagawa ; Fine Wind, Clear Morning; and Rainstorm Beneath the Summit. The series has been described as the artist's "indisputable colour-print masterpiece".
History
Mount Fuji is a popular subject for Japanese art due to its cultural and religious significance. This belief can be traced to The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, where a goddess deposits the elixir of life on the peak. As the historian Henry Smith explains, "Thus from an early time, Mt. Fuji was seen as the source of the secret of immortality, a tradition that was at the heart of Hokusai's own obsession with the mountain."The most famous single image from the series is widely known in English as The Great Wave off Kanagawa. It depicts three boats being threatened by a large wave while Mount Fuji rises in the background. While sometimes assumed to be a tsunami, the wave is more likely to be an exceptionally large storm wave.
Each of the images was made through a process whereby an image drawn on paper was used to guide the carving of a wood block. This block was then covered with ink and applied to paper to create the image. The complexity of Hokusai's images includes the wide range of colors he used, which required the use of a separate block for each color appearing in the image.
While Hokusai's Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji is the most famous ukiyo-e series to focus on Mount Fuji, there are several other works with the same subject, including Hiroshige's series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji and Hokusai's subsequent book . From to 1892, the series of, the parody of number 36, was produced by Yoshitoshi, and published by.
The French artist Henri Rivière published the set of color lithographs "Thirty-six views of the Tour Eiffel" in 1902, inspired by the seminal print set of Hokusai, one of the many influences of Japanese art on late 19th century and early 20th century French art
Prints
Original thirty-six
These images are of modern facsimile prints made using the same techniques.| No. | Image | English title | Japanese title |
| 1 | The Great Wave off Kanagawa | Kanagawa oki nami-ura | |
| 2 | Fine Wind, Clear Morning, also known as South Wind, Clear Sky or Red Fuji | Gaifū kaisei | |
| 3 | Rainstorm Beneath the Summit | Sanka hakuu | |
| 4 | Under Mannen Bridge at Fukagawa | Fukagawa Mannen-bashi shita | |
| 5 | Sundai, Edo | Tōto sundai | |
| 6 | Cushion Pine at Aoyama | Aoyama enza-no-matsu | |
| 7 | Senju, Musashi But | Bushū Senju | |
| 8 | Inume Pass, Kōshū | Kōshū inume-tōge | |
| 9 | Fuji View Field in Owari Province | Bishū Fujimigahara | |
| 10 | Ejiri in Suruga Province | Sunshū Ejiri | |
| 11 | A sketch of the Mitsui shop in Suruga in Edo | Kōto Suruga-cho Mitsui Miseryakuzu | |
| 12 | Sunset across the Ryōgoku bridge from the bank of the Sumida River at Onmayagashi | Ommayagashi yori ryōgoku-bashi yūhi mi | |
| 13 | Sazai hall - Temple of Five Hundred Rakan | Gohyaku-rakanji Sazaidō | |
| 14 | Tea house at Koishikawa. The morning after a snowfall | Koishikawa yuki no ashita | |
| 15 | Shimomeguro | Shimomeguro | |
| 16 | Watermill at Onden | Onden no suisha | |
| 17 | Enoshima in Sagami Province | Soshū Enoshima | |
| 18 | Shore of Tago Bay, Ejiri at Tōkaidō | Tōkaidō Ejiri tago-no-uraryakuzu | |
| 19 | Yoshida at Tōkaidō | Tōkaidō Yoshida | |
| 20 | The Kazusa Province sea route | Kazusa no kairo | |
| 21 | Nihonbashi bridge in Edo | Edo Nihon-bashi | |
| 22 | Barrier Town on the Sumida River | Sumidagawa Sekiya no sato | |
| 23 | Bay of Noboto | Noboto-ura | |
| 24 | The lake of Hakone in Sagami Province | Sōshū Hakone kosui | |
| 25 | Mount Fuji reflects in Lake Kawaguchi, seen from the Misaka Pass in Kai Province | Kōshū Misaka suimen | |
| 26 | Hodogaya on the Tōkaidō | Tōkaidō Hodogaya | |
| 27 | Tama River in Musashi Province | Bushū Tamagawa | |
| 28 | Asakusa Hongan-ji temple in the Eastern capital | Tōto Asakusa honganji | |
| 29 | Tsukuda Island in Musashi Province | Buyō Tsukuda-jima | |
| 30 | Shichiri beach in Sagami Province | Soshū Shichiri-ga-hama | |
| 31 | Umezawa in Sagami Province | Soshū umezawanoshō | |
| 32 | Kajikazawa in Kai Province | Kōshū Kajikazawa | |
| 33 | Mishima Pass in Kai Province | Kōshū Mishima-goe | |
| 34 | Mount Fuji from the mountains of Tōtōmi | Tōtōumi sanchū | |
| 35 | A View of Mount Fuji Across Lake Suwa | Shinshū Suwa-ko | |
| 36 | Ushibori in Hitachi Province | Jōshū Ushibori |
Additional 10
Exhibitions
A collection of Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji prints contained in the wellness spa of the Costa Concordia was lost during the collision of the ship on January 13, 2012.All forty-six prints were featured in the exhibition "Hokusai: 36 Views of Mount Fuji" at the Freer Gallery of Art and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, the Smithsonian's museums of Asian art, in the spring of 2012.
The Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji prints were displayed at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston as part of a Hokusai exhibit April 5 through August 9, 2015.
The Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji prints were displayed at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia as part of a Hokusai exhibit 21 July through 22 October 2017, featuring two copies of The Great Wave off Kanagawa, one from the NGV and one from Japan Ukiyo-e Museum.