The Farmland of Fuji in Kai Province (Kai no Fuji nō-otoko): Detatched page from One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku hyakkei) Vol. 3

The Farmland of Fuji in Kai Province (Kai no Fuji no-otoko) is a detached page from Volume 3 of Katsushika Hokusai's One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku hyakkei), published in 1835. The design centers on a single peasant cultivator, body bent in labor amid the open fields of Kai Province at the southern foot of the sacred mountain. Fuji rises sharply behind him, framing the worker's quiet exertion as part of the sacred geography of Japan. By isolating a single human figure within the vast landscape of his home province, Hokusai distills a recurring theme of his late career: that Fuji is not only an object of distant reverence but a constant companion to those who live, eat, and labor in its shadow. As a master of Edo ukiyo-e, Hokusai uses the monochrome ehon palette of Fugaku hyakkei to focus attention on linear invention and atmospheric subtlety, the very qualities that made these woodblock-printed books so influential as artists' references. Detached pages such as this one allow modern collectors to engage with a single composition in close, framed view, while reminding us that the image originally functioned within a sequence. The Harvard Art Museums preserve this leaf as part of their distinguished Hokusai holdings. For students of the ukiyo-e print tradition, it offers an intimate window onto Hokusai's late vision of Fuji and the rural life it presides over.