Bushū Tamagawa
Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji
Katsushika Hokusai
Artwork Description
Bushū Tamagawa depicts the Tamagawa River as it flows through Musashi Province, today’s Tokyo region. Rather than dramatizing the scene, Hokusai builds the composition through controlled horizontals and measured depth.
The river sweeps diagonally across the foreground, guiding the viewer’s eye into layered space. Gentle currents ripple across the water’s surface, rendered through fine linear articulation. The banks recede gradually, allowing Mount Fuji to emerge calmly on the horizon.
Human figures appear integrated rather than dominant. Their presence does not interrupt the landscape but participates in it—suggesting coexistence rather than confrontation. Labor and leisure blend into the rhythm of the flowing water.
The composition achieves harmony through balance: horizontal water against vertical mountain, near detail against distant silhouette. Fuji does not tower aggressively; it stabilizes the entire field.
Here, Hokusai does not rely on spectacle. Instead, he constructs a study in continuity—river as movement, mountain as permanence. The result is a landscape where time flows gently forward, and Fuji remains the silent constant.
About Katsushika Hokusai
Katsushika Hokusai was one of the most influential ukiyo-e artists of the Edo period. Active as painter and printmaker, he transformed ukiyo-e into a vehicle for structural landscape exploration.
In Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, he examines motion and stillness, density and emptiness, industry and contemplation—always anchoring the composition with Fuji as a stabilizing axis.
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.
