A lone traveler approaching Mount Fuji on foot connects this print to the centuries-old tradition of pilgrimage art in Japanese printmaking. The human figure provides scale that emphasizes Fuji's overwhelming presence on the horizon. This composition typically sells for $150-$500, and its narrative quality gives it slightly broader appeal than Asano's purely scenic Fuji views.
Mt. Fuji and Traveller presents Japan's sacred mountain as backdrop for a solitary human figure on foot — a pilgrim, traveler, or wanderer making their way across the broad plain or coastal path below the mountain. The image belongs to a long tradition in Japanese art of situating human beings in their proper relationship to the natural world: dwarfed by mountains, subordinated to the seasons, small in the face of geological permanence. Asano's traveler, moving through the foreground while Fuji rises imperturbably behind, embodies this fundamental aesthetic of human smallness before natural grandeur.
Wakasa Kugushiko
1920
Color woodblock print; oban
Woodblock print
1934
Color woodblock print; oban
n.d.
Woodblock print; ishizuri-e, section of harimaze sheet
Curated cross-cuts that include this print.
Mt. Fuji and Traveller was created by Takeji Asano (浅野竹二).
Mt. Fuji and Traveller uses Bokashi, Nishiki-e, and Moku-hanga, on woodblock print.
Mt. Fuji and Traveller was published by Unsodo.
Mt. Fuji and Traveller depicts landscapes, figures, and mount fuji, set at Mount Fuji.
