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The 36 Views of Mount Fuji is a series of woodblock prints created between 1826 and 1833 by Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai. Popular in the West, it’s one of the most well known Japanese art works due the widespread pop-culture reproduction of The Great Wave of Kanagawa (the first picture in the series) into posters, t-shirts and postcards.

On Ukiyo-e – Japanese Woodblock Prints

The term Ukiyo-e refers to ‘pictures of the floating world‘, a blossoming urban culture embodied by the lifestyles of the cultural bourgeoisie. The novelist Asai Ryoi provided a definition of the ‘floating life’ in his 1661 novel Tales of the Floating World (Ukiyo-monogatari):

“Living only for the moment, savoring the moon, the snow, the cherry blossoms and the maple leaves, singing songs, loving sake, women and poetry, letting oneself drift, buoyant and carefree, like a gourd carried along with the river current.”

Woodblock prints became popular in the Edo period during the second half of the 17th century. Mass produced for townsmen and common folk, its subject matter originally began with city life and culture before evolving into the topic of landscapes. Like almost all mediums, ukiyo-e was also used to produce sexually explicit images (shunga) and satire.

While the production process may vary, Katsushika Hokusai’s 36 Views of Mount Fuji was developed by first drawing an image on paper, which was than used as a guide to carve a wooden block. The block was then inked and applied to sheets of paper to create an image. Hokusai used a wide range of colors, thus requiring the use of multiple blocks for each image.

The pivotal point in the art of ukiyo-e came with Katsushika Hokusai, “the one obsessed with painting”. He conclusively shifted the emphasis from personal portraiture to a depiction of nature. Hokusai began by creating landscapes in the spirit of ancient Japanese art; he went on to attain a new vision of nature.

He was fascinated with European copperplate engraving, a technique which he had encountered in his studies. Through color shading and depth perspective, he strove for a new spatial reality. The results were strange, surrealistic creations of the imagination, which he soon surpassed. (source)

On Katsushika Hokusai: Legendary Artist of the Edo Period

Katsushika Hokusai is an interesting character. One of Japan’s leading experts on Chinese painting during the Edo period, he began painting by the age of 6 and was known by at least 30 names during his lifetime. He was keen on experimental displays of art: once at the competition held by the Shogun, he painted a blue curve on paper while chasing a chicken with red paint on its feet across it. He described it as a landscape showing a river with red maple leaves floating on it. He won.

He was also instrumental in the creation of the modern manga comics you see, having created the Hokusai Manga (random illustrations of animals, religious figures, and everyday people) in 1811 as a way to make money and attract students.

What I liked most about Hokusai was his view that painting was a way to develop a complete understanding of reality, a result of his belief in Nichiren Buddhism. A postscript from his work One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji reads:

From around the age of six, I had the habit of sketching from life. I became an artist, and from fifty on began producing works that won some reputation, but nothing I did before the age of seventy was worthy of attention. At seventy-three, I began to grasp the structures of birds and beasts, insects and fish, and of the way plants grow.

If I go on trying, I will surely understand them still better by the time I am eighty-six, so that by ninety I will have penetrated to their essential nature. At one hundred, I may well have a positively divine understanding of them, while at one hundred and thirty, forty, or more I will have reached the stage where every dot and every stroke I paint will be alive. May Heaven, that grants long life, give me the chance to prove that this is no lie.

Hokusai died in 1849 at 89 years old. On his deathbed, he said, “If only Heaven will give me just another ten years… Just another five more years, then I could become a real painter.” Over the span of his career, his most popular and influential work in Japan and the West was the 36 Views of Mouth Fuji, the full set of which you can view below.

You’ll notice that there are 46 prints below. The first 36 were included in the original publication, and later on 10 more prints were included, due to the popularity of the series. Fortunately, all of the images are now in the public domain because their copyright has expired.

1. The Great Wave off Kanagawa

Published in 1832 (Edo Period) as the first in Hokusai’s series, this is his most famous work. It depicts an enormous wave threatening boats near the Japanese prefecture of Kanagawa; Mount Fuji can be seen in the background. The wave is probably not intended to be a tsunami, but a normal ocean wave created by the wind.

2. Mount Fuji in Clear Weather (also known as Red Fuji)

3. A Shower Below The Summit

4. Fuji seen through the Mannen bridge at Fukagawa, Edo

5. The Fuji seen from the Surugadai hill, Edo

6. The coast of seven leagues in Kamakura

7. Senju in the Musashi Province

8. Tama River in the Musashi Province

9. Inume pass in the Kai Province

10. Fujimi Fuji view field in the Owari Province

11. Asakusa Honganji temple in the Eastern capital (Edo)

12. Tsukada Island in the Musashi Province

13. Shichiri beach in Sagami Province

14. Umegawa in Sagami Province

15. Kajikazawa in Kai Province

16. Mishima pass in Kai Province

17. Lake Suwa in the Shinano Province

18. Ejiri in the Suruga Province

19. The Fuji from the mountains of T?t?mi

20. Ushibori in the Hitachi Province

21. A sketch of the Mitsui shop in Suruga street in Edo

22. Sunset across the Ry?goku bridge from the bank of the Sumida River at Onmayagashi

23. Sazai hall – 500 Rakanji temple

24. Tea house at Koishikawa. The morning after a snowfall

25. Shimomeguro

26. Watermill at Onden

27. Enoshima in the Sagami Province

28. Shore of Tago Bay, Ejiri at Tokaido

29. Yoshida at Tokaido

30. The Kazusa Province sea route

31. Nihonbashi bridge in Edo

32. Village of Sekiya at Sumida River

33. Bay of Noboto

34. The lake of Hakone in the Sagami Province

35. The Fuji reflects in Lake Kawaguchi, seen from the Misaka pass in the Kai Province

36. Hodogaya on the Tokaido

37. Honjo Tatekawa, the timberyard at Honjo

38. Pleasure District at Senju

39. Goten-yama-hill, Shinagawa on the Tokaido

40. Nakahara in the Sagami Province

41. Dawn at Isawa in the Kai Province

42. The back of the Fuji from the Minobu river

43. Ono Shinden in the Suruga Province

44. The Tea plantation of Katakura in the Suruga Province

45. The Fuji from Kanaya on the Tokaido

46. Climbing on Fuji