"Watermill at Onden" from 36 views of Mt.Fuji series by Hokusai

Description : 

Katsushika Hokusai’s Watermill at Onden (Onden no suisha) from Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji portrays everyday life in the rural village of Onden, located near today’s Harajuku in Shibuya, Tokyo. The composition centers on a large waterwheel powered by the Shibuya River, with villagers busily working around it—women washing rice bran, men carrying sacks of grain, and a child walking a pet turtle on a string. In the distance, Mount Fuji rises serenely, providing a calm counterbalance to the energetic movement in the foreground.
Hokusai’s depiction of water is dynamic and expressive, with the cascading flow from the wheel rendered through rhythmic curves that echo his signature wave patterns. Interestingly, the waterwheel’s perspective is intentionally reversed: the rim becomes larger as it recedes into the distance, an example of Hokusai’s deliberate use of “reverse perspective” to command visual tension and guide the viewer’s gaze between the workers and Mount Fuji.
Beyond its technical ingenuity, this print captures the vitality of Edo’s outskirts at a time when Harajuku was still a pastoral landscape dotted with mills along the Shibuya River. The artwork celebrates human industry and resilience within nature, showing how daily labor coexisted with the grandeur of Fuji. Hokusai’s aesthetic insight transforms this simple rural scene into a meditation on balance—between movement and stillness, humanity and nature, work and beauty.

Hokusai Katsushika : 
Known simply as Hokusai, was a Japanese Ukiyo-e artist of the Edo period, active as a painter and printmaker. 
He is best known for the woodblock print series Thirty six views of Mt Fuji, which includes the iconic print The Great Wave Off Kanagawa. Hokusai was instrumental in developing Ukiyo-e from a style of portraiture largely focused on courtesans and actors into a much broader style of art that focused on landscapes, plants, and animals. His works are thought to have had a significant influence on Vincent Van Gogh and Claude Monete during the wave of Japonism that spread across Europe in the late 19th century.

REPRODUCTION : In the 20th century, artists and publishers collaborated to recreate famous woodblock prints, providing them to Japanese collectors and Westerners seeking rare designs.
New blocks were made, and artisan printers painstakingly printed each color using the same method as the 19th-century originals.

Limited edition lithograph
Hand-printed, numbered 180/300 on margin.
Size : 
410mm x 600mm