Sekiya Village on the Sumida River (Sumidagawa Sekiya no sato), from the seriesThirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku sanjūrokkei)

Sekiya Village on the Sumida River shows Katsushika Hokusai at his most kinetic. Designed around 1825 for the Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, the print stages a thundering gallop of three horsemen along the embankment of the Sumida River, just outside Edo near Sekiya. The riders are pitched forward, their coats flying, while a low ridge of pine and willow defines the riverbank below. Mount Fuji rises in the distance, a calm, conical counterweight to the burst of human and animal energy in the foreground. The composition's diagonals, drawn from the riders' bodies and the line of the embankment, set up a sharp contrast with the smooth, immobile profile of the mountain, making this one of the most dynamic prints in the entire Fugaku sanjurokkei. Hokusai's use of imported Prussian blue is unmistakable, both in the sky and in the river, providing the tonal scaffolding for the work. As an ukiyo-e print, the design exemplifies how Katsushika Hokusai integrated genre and landscape, capturing a moment of urgency in the suburban outskirts of Edo. The Art Institute of Chicago holds this impression and presents it as a touchstone of his mature Edo ukiyo-e style, where everyday Japanese life and the iconic sacred mountain are fully bound together.