Yoroidake (Armour Peak)

Yoroidake (Armour Peak) is a woodblock print depicting the mountain in the Northern Alps of Japan whose name references the segmented appearance of its rocky ridgeline, said to resemble samurai armor. The peak rises in the Hotaka range of Nagano Prefecture, and its rugged profile has attracted mountaineers and artists alike. Maeda Toshiro's print renders the mountain's armored appearance through the woodblock's capacity for crisp geological forms, the layered rock faces carved into the block as precisely as the mountain itself was carved by glaciers. The warrior association in the name adds a martial quality to what is otherwise a pure landscape subject.