Tōkaidō Ejiri
Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji
Katsushika Hokusai
Artwork Description
This print captures the bustling post town of Ejiri-shuku along the Tōkaidō Road, a vital junction connecting inland travel to Ejiri and Shimizu ports. Hokusai transforms this travel hub into a stage for one of nature’s most elusive forces: wind.
A sudden gust sweeps through the street. Travelers bend forward, clutching their garments and hats. A woman, wrapped in a hood, loses loose sheets of paper from her bosom. The wind carries them upward, one hat leading the swirling arc through the sky. Through these scattered objects and strained postures, Hokusai renders the invisible visible.
The diagonal trajectory of flying papers cuts across the composition, animating the space between foreground and background. In contrast, Mount Fuji stands immovable in the distance. The white surface of Uba-ga-ike glimmers quietly beneath it. The scene thus balances agitation and stability—human figures tossed by air, the mountain unaffected.
Unlike the violent surge of water in The Great Wave, this work depicts atmospheric force. The drama lies not in destruction, but in imbalance. Wind disrupts order momentarily, yet Fuji remains constant. Through this juxtaposition, Hokusai underscores the smallness of human bodies against elemental presence.
The print stands as one of the most vivid demonstrations of motion within the series, capturing a fleeting instant where daily life collides with natural energy.
About Katsushika Hokusai
Katsushika Hokusai was one of the most influential ukiyo-e artists of the Edo period. Active as both painter and printmaker, he expanded ukiyo-e beyond portraits of actors and courtesans into landscapes, nature, and scenes of daily life.
His series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji represents a landmark in Japanese printmaking. Through inventive composition and dynamic contrasts of movement and stillness, Hokusai redefined the expressive possibilities of landscape within ukiyo-e.
Reproduction
This work is a 20th century lithographic reproduction of Hokusai’s Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji.
It is not an original Edo period woodblock print, but a later limited edition lithograph.
Hand printed and numbered 180/300 in pencil on the lower margin.
Details
Medium: Lithograph
Edition: 180/300
Size: 410 mm × 600 mm
All artworks are sold as shown in the photographs.
