Series : One Hundred Views of Fuji, Fugaku Hyakkei
Technique: nishikie, woodcuts in two shades of gray and one of pink.
Format: hanshinbon koban diptych (about 183x253 mm)
Signatures : Zen Hokusai Iitsu aratame Gakyorojin Manji
Artist's seal : Fuji no Yama
Dates : engraved between 1834 – 1836, impressed between 1850 and 1870
Engravers: Egawa Tomekichi and Tsentaro
Publisher: Katano Toshiro.
Splendid proof with good contrasts, in the third edition from the original woodcuts. Printed on Japan paper, in excellent condition, with clean edges all around beyond the marginal line.
Bibliography:
Calza GC Hokusai, the old fool for painting , Milan 1999-2000, London, 2003.
Calza GC Hokusai, the hundred views of Fuji , Milan, 1982.
Dickins FV Fugaku hiyaku-kei: one hundred view of Fuji by Hokusai , London, 1880.
Forrer M. Hokusai, prints and drawings , London, 1991.
Hillier J. The art of Hokusai in book illustration , London, 1980.
Lane R. Hokusai, life and works , Milan, 1991.
Salamon Villa T., The hundred views of Fuji, Turin, 1975.
Smith II H. Hokusai: one hundred view of Fuji by Hokusai, London, 1988.
The clouds that hooded Fuji in the previous plate have now opened up in the shape of a belt.
Peasants around a mill, porters with their load escorted by two samurai in traveling robes, a water buffalo being dragged by the bridle; all characters who, immersed in their everyday life, exalt, by contrast, the one who manages to detach himself from it, to perceive, in an authentic relationship with beauty, the divine. Thus the figure of the itinerant monk full of admiration in observing the Fuji surrounded by the thin cloud in which tradition recognizes the hermit/poet Saigyo Hoshi (1118-1190).
The branches of the large oblique pine point out the real focus of the scene.
On the samurai's cloak, the character was : 'fortune, abundance, Fuji'.