Kirifuri Falls at Mount Kurokami in Shimotsuke Province is among the most graphically inventive sheets in A Tour of Waterfalls in Various Provinces (Shokoku taki meguri), Katsushika Hokusai's eight-print survey of celebrated cascades published around 1828. The Kirifuri ("mist-falling") cataract, located near Nikko on the slopes of Mount Kurokami, is shown as a tree-like structure of branching white streams that fan out across a black rock face. Hokusai treats each spray of water as a flat, hand-drawn ribbon, dramatically simplifying what would otherwise be a chaotic natural form. A small party of travelers stands on a path at the base, providing scale and reminding viewers that this is a known site on the road to Nikko, not a fantasy landscape. As an Edo [ukiyo-e](/glossary/ukiyo-e) print, Kirifuri Falls reflects the growing market for travel imagery and meisho prints in the late Bunsei era, when commercial publishers competed to produce landscape series that ordinary city-dwellers could collect in lieu of actual pilgrimage. The Art Institute of Chicago impression preserves the deep Prussian blues, browns, and crisp keyblock lines that distinguish good early printings of this design. The waterfalls series is widely regarded as the most experimental landscape set Hokusai ever produced, and Kirifuri in particular has long fascinated artists and designers for the way it converts moving water into pure pattern within the conventions of the ukiyo-e print.
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.
Kirifuri Falls at Mount Kurokami in Shimotsuke Province (Shimotsuke Kurokamiyama Kirifuri no taki), from the series "A Tour of Waterfalls in Various Provinces (Shokoku taki meguri)" was created by Katsushika Hokusai (葛飾北斎) in c. 1833.
Kirifuri Falls at Mount Kurokami in Shimotsuke Province (Shimotsuke Kurokamiyama Kirifuri no taki), from the series "A Tour of Waterfalls in Various Provinces (Shokoku taki meguri)" depicts landscapes, waterfalls, and autumn foliage.