Fuji through Smoke (Enchū no Fuji): Detached page from One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku hyakkei) Vol. 1
- Date:
- Edo period, 1834 (Tempō 5)
- Medium:
- Ukiyo-e woodblock-printed book page; ink on paper
- Source:
- Harvard Art Museums
Fuji through Smoke (Enchu no Fuji) is a detached page from Volume 1 of Katsushika Hokusai's celebrated picture book One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku hyakkei), published beginning in 1834. The Harvard Art Museums preserve this impression of an image that belongs to one of the most ambitious projects in Edo ukiyo-e: a multi-volume meditation in which Hokusai approaches the sacred mountain from every conceivable angle, season, and human circumstance. Here the mountain is glimpsed beyond a veil of drifting smoke, perhaps from a charcoal kiln, household fire, or pilgrim's encampment. Foreground figures attend to their work while the peak hovers in the background, transformed into a calm geometric presence by the soft, monochromatic printing of the book pages. The composition shows Hokusai's command of negative space and his interest in framing Fuji through ordinary, everyday activity, treating the mountain less as a remote deity than as a constant companion to daily life. As a ukiyo-e print and book illustration, Fuji through Smoke also highlights the technical refinement of Tenpo-era publishing in Edo: thin lines, careful tonal gradations, and precise registration translate the artist's brushwork into reproducible form. Within the larger Fugaku hyakkei series, this leaf contributes to Hokusai's argument that the sacred and the prosaic, the timeless and the contingent, share a single landscape, and that the artist's task is to reveal that quiet, persistent coexistence.
1821
Color woodblock print with metallic pigments; surimono shikishiban
1822
Color woodblock print; shikishiban, surimono
1822
Color woodblock print; shikishiban, surimono
c. 1832
Color woodblock print; oban
Wakasa Kugushiko
1920
Color woodblock print; oban
Woodblock print
1934
Color woodblock print; oban
n.d.
Woodblock print; ishizuri-e, section of harimaze sheet
Curated cross-cuts that include this print.
Fuji through Smoke (Enchū no Fuji): Detached page from One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku hyakkei) Vol. 1 was created by Katsushika Hokusai (葛飾北斎) in Edo period, 1834 (Tempō 5).
Fuji through Smoke (Enchū no Fuji): Detached page from One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku hyakkei) Vol. 1 depicts landscapes and mount fuji.