Mt.Fuji

Mt. Fuji has been treated by Japanese printmakers from Hokusai's Thirty-six Views series through the shin-hanga revival of the early twentieth century, and Hiratsuka's contribution sits within that long iconographic tradition while standing apart from it stylistically. Rather than the layered atmospheric perspective and color gradations of his predecessors, Hiratsuka would reduce the cone to broad carved planes, with the silhouette of the mountain established through cut edges rather than tonal modeling. Bokashi gradation, central to Hokusai and Hasui's Fuji prints, is largely absent from his idiom; the print derives its impact instead from the rhythm of the carved block and the direct pressure of the baren on washi. As a sosaku-hanga artist who designed, carved, and printed his own work, Hiratsuka treats the mountain as a problem in relief carving rather than a vehicle for pictorial atmosphere.