Mount Solitary

Mount Solitary belongs to the long lineage of mountain subjects in Japanese woodblock printing, the genre that Hokusai and Hiroshige defined and that Kristensen has engaged repeatedly through his Tokyo Tower reworking of the Fuji views. The title points to a single peak treated as the compositional anchor, the kind of subject that mokuhanga handles through silhouette and graduated atmospheric tone rather than aerial perspective. A bokashi sky, layered color blocks for foreground vegetation, and the reserved white of unprinted washi for cloud or snow would be the standard means. Kristensen's approach to such material tends to avoid the picturesque: where Hokusai treated Fuji as a recurring motif viewed from thirty-six angles, Kristensen has shown a similar interest in the mountain as compositional device rather than spiritual symbol. The print extends his practice of working within the formal grammar of classical mokuhanga — registered cherry blocks, water-based pigments, hand-burnished impressions — while bringing a contemporary, often Western-inflected eye to the choice of subject.