1834
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
South Wind, Clear Sky, from Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji is a 1834 by Katsushika Hokusai, a Romanticism work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see Mount Fuji rising alone, its slopes glowing red under a pale blue sky. Thin clouds streak the top like brushstrokes. This print is part of a series showing the mountain from different angles and seasons. The red tint comes from morning light in early autumn—something travelers at the time would recognize from guidebooks. To see how other artists painted Japan’s landscapes, look up the subject *japan, edo period (1615–1868)*.
Mt. Fuji, Japan’s highest mountain, appeared in most Japanese 19th-century travel literature. Maps sometimes showed its location with a Fuji-shaped icon and indicated where travelers could get the best view of it. Between 1829 and 1833, Hokusai created a print series depicting thirty-six views of the mountain, including this one, sometimes known as “Red Fuji.” The season in this scene is a time between late summer and early autumn, when the mountain takes on a reddish hue.
During the printing process, the natural grain of the cherry wood printing block was imprinted onto the paper along with the red-colored dye.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Katsushika Hokusai spent his life in Edo, now Tokyo, where he drew and carved prints for a living.
See the richer artist page
