Mt. Unzen (with original folio)

Mount Unzen — the active volcanic massif of the Shimabara Peninsula on Kyushu — is Yumeji's subject in this print, issued with its original protective folio, which places it within a context of formal publication. Yumeji's travel to Nagasaki and Kyushu in 1920 produced a body of landscape work that stands apart from his bijin prints, the volcanic drama of Unzen providing a subject unlike anything in his typical repertoire. The mountain's dangerous beauty — Unzen erupted fatally in the 1990s — suits the Yumeji aesthetic of beauty shadowed by peril.