Tōtōmi sanchū
Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji
Katsushika Hokusai
Artwork Description
In Tōtōmi sanchū, Hokusai depicts timber workers laboring in the mountains of western Shizuoka. Massive logs dominate the foreground, their weight and scale emphasized by the diagonal beam cutting across the composition.
Through a gap formed by the timber structure, Mount Fuji appears in the distance. The mountain is not the immediate subject, but revealed through human activity. This framing device transforms the act of labor into a visual aperture. Fuji becomes something discovered rather than presented.
The composition is structured around bold triangular forms. The intersecting logs create strong diagonal tension, balanced by the stable geometry of Fuji beyond. The scene is animated by the workers’ gestures, whose movements introduce rhythm and vitality into the rigid wooden framework.
Subtle rendering of smoke and atmospheric perspective demonstrates Hokusai’s engagement with Western techniques, particularly in the modeling of space and depth. Yet the composition remains distinctly his own—controlled, architectural, and inventive.
In this print, nature is not opposed to humanity, but mediated through craft. The mountain emerges within the framework of work, suggesting that vision itself is shaped by structure.
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 turning point in Japanese printmaking. Through structural experimentation and inventive perspective, Hokusai reshaped the expressive language 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.
