Landscape and Legend

Katsushika Hokusai

South Wind, Clear Sky (Red Fuji)

c. 1830–32

Woodblock print; ink and color on paper, 24.4 × 35.6 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

The mountain alone, glowing red under fleecy clouds, fills the sheet.

• Fuji can look reddish at late-summer dawns, perhaps what he meant to show.
• Janice Katz (Art Institute) notes later printings are much redder than the earliest, softer ones.
• Bokashi: color wiped by hand on the block shades the cone from green to red-brown.

Image: The Met Open Access · Public domain (Met Open Access)