Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji

A series of ukiyo-e landscape prints by Katsushika Hokusai, published around 1831–1833, depicting Mount Fuji from varied viewpoints and seasons. Its commercial success led to ten additional designs, bringing the series to forty-six prints.

The Great Wave off Kanagawa: A woodblock print by Hokusai showing boats beneath a towering wave, with Mount Fuji in the distance. Its dramatic foreground makes Fuji a small but unmistakable presence.
Ukiyo-e: A genre of Japanese art, especially woodblock prints, that flourished from the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries. The series belongs to ukiyo-e’s commercial print culture and landscape tradition.
Katsushika Hokusai: A Japanese artist and printmaker whose work ranged from ukiyo-e portraits to influential landscapes. He designed the series while pursuing new ways to depict familiar scenery.
Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (Hiroshige): A later series of landscape prints by Utagawa Hiroshige depicting Mount Fuji from varied locations. Hiroshige’s response shows how Hokusai’s project became a model for Fuji imagery.
Mount Fuji pilgrimage: Religious journeys to Mount Fuji, undertaken by devotees seeking spiritual merit and sacred experience. Pilgrimage gives the mountain a religious significance beyond its scenic appeal.
Fine Wind, Clear Morning: A Hokusai print depicting Mount Fuji against a clear sky, its summit and slopes rendered in red tones. It reduces the series’ subject to Fuji’s monumental form and changing color.
Japanese woodblock printing: A relief-printing process in which carved wooden blocks transfer ink or pigment onto paper. Multiple carved blocks made the series’ colored impressions reproducible.
Edo period: The period of Japanese history from 1603 to 1868, when the Tokugawa shogunate ruled from Edo. The prints emerged from the period’s urban culture and domestic travel.
One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji: A three-volume illustrated book by Hokusai, published from 1834, presenting many imagined and observed views of Mount Fuji. Hokusai extended his sustained exploration of Fuji beyond the print series.
Fugaku shinkō: Japanese religious devotion centered on Mount Fuji and its sacred power. Fuji’s spiritual status informs the cultural weight carried by repeated depictions.

Linked from 7 pages

Aizuri-eBroader topic: The series’ blue-rich prints helped popularize the pigment and the style.