Near the Top

The title situates the viewer near the summit of a mountain ascent, likely one of the peaks within reach of Tokyo that Koizumi documented alongside his urban subjects. The composition typical of such prints positions the climber's perspective at a high vantage, with rocky foreground passages giving onto cloud or distant ridge lines treated through [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) gradients that suggest atmospheric distance. Koizumi carved and printed every block himself, and the surface of his impressions retains the slightly uneven [baren](/glossary/baren)-rubbed texture that distinguishes [sosaku-hanga](/glossary/sosaku-hanga) from the more uniform commercial [nishiki-e](/glossary/nishiki-e) produced by professional printer-publisher partnerships. Mountain subjects extended Koizumi's topographic project beyond the city limits of Dai Tokyo Hyakkei into the surrounding sangaku landscape, a tradition with roots in Hokusai's Fugaku sanjurokkei and Hiroshige's later mountain views, here re-engaged through the self-reliant production methods of the sosaku-hanga movement.