Hanga
(従箱根山中富獄眺望) by Kobayashi Kiyochika — Japanese Woodblock print

(従箱根山中富獄眺望)

by Kobayashi Kiyochika

Medium:
Woodblock print
Image courtesy of
Ritsumeikan University

Description

This print renders a view of Mount Fuji from the mountain roads of Hakone, positioning the volcano as a distant peak seen across an intervening landscape of forested slopes and valleys. The vantage point from Hakone—where Fuji appears across the lake or between mountain passes—had been a subject in Japanese landscape prints since the Edo period, but Kiyochika inflects the tradition with his characteristic atmospheric diffusion. Rather than the sharply contoured Fuji of Hokusai's Thirty-Six Views, Kiyochika's version is likely softer, partially obscured by mist or framed by dark foreground pines that contrast in tonality with the pale cone beyond. The Western concept of atmospheric perspective—objects losing color saturation and value as they recede—underlies the spatial organization, applied here through multiple graduated ink and pigment impressions on ōban washi.

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Frequently Asked Questions

(従箱根山中富獄眺望) was created by Kobayashi Kiyochika (小林清親).