Dragon ascending Mt. Fuji

A dragon coils upward through cloud bands toward the snow-capped summit of Mount Fuji, a subject drawn from the auspicious dream tradition (ichi-Fuji, ni-taka, san-nasubi) and from the Buddhist iconography of the dragon as a guardian of sacred peaks. Gekko renders the dragon's serpentine body with a calligraphic line inherited from his self-directed study of Kano and Maruyama-Shijo painting, while the volcanic cone is set off by graduated [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) printing in the sky. The composition uses strong vertical thrust, with the dragon's scales picked out in [karazuri](/glossary/karazuri) (blind embossing) typical of better Meiji-era [nishiki-e](/glossary/nishiki-e) impressions. Mount Fuji recurs throughout Gekko's oeuvre — in his landscape sets, his war prints showing troops marching past the mountain, and standalone mythological designs like this one. The print exemplifies the late-Meiji taste for hybrid subjects that combine traditional Yamato-e themes with the heightened atmospheric effects made possible by improved aniline pigments.