Senju Yukaku
Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji
Katsushika Hokusai
Artwork Description
Senju Yukaku presents a lively district in Senju, an area known not only as a major post town but also for its licensed pleasure quarters. Rather than isolating the entertainment district, Hokusai situates it within the broader flow of Edo society.
In the foreground, a disciplined samurai procession advances along the road, forming a structured horizontal movement. Their ordered formation contrasts with bystanders who pause, observe, and converse casually along the edges of the scene. Hierarchy and informality occupy the same spatial field.
The composition organizes movement through a central roadway that recedes toward the horizon, where Mount Fuji appears in the distance. Fuji does not dominate; it stabilizes. Its snow-capped peak introduces vertical calm against the horizontal flow of urban life.
Hokusai’s strength lies in spatial orchestration. Formal procession and everyday curiosity coexist without conflict. The pleasure district becomes neither moralized nor romanticized; it is simply embedded within the social fabric.
Through geometry and contrast—order versus spontaneity, procession versus pause—Hokusai constructs a scene where structured authority and popular life unfold beneath the silent constancy of Fuji.
About Katsushika Hokusai
Katsushika Hokusai was one of the most influential ukiyo-e artists of the Edo period. Active as painter and printmaker, he expanded ukiyo-e into a structural study of landscape and society.
In Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, he repeatedly juxtaposes human systems—faith, labor, commerce, travel—with the mountain’s enduring presence.
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.
