Hokusai: 36 Views of Mount Fuji #418761

The Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji is a series of forty-six prints created by Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849) and published between 1831 and 1833. They represent Mount Fuji from different locations, depending on the season. This series is now very famous because it marks the integration into the themes of the Japanese tradition (the oldest of the many artistic representations of Mount Fuji seems to date from the 11th century) of Western modes of representation, and in particular the perspective used in Western painting. Mount Fuji had already appeared several times in Hokusai's work, such as in an 1805 Surimono between flowering cherry trees. Around 1830, Hokusai probably contacted the publisher Nishimuraya Yoachi to submit his project to him to engrave a series of large landscape prints on this unique theme. Ten prints were first published, including The Great Wave of Kanagawa, The Fuji in Clear Weather and The Storm Under the Summit often considered the three most famous Japanese prints and immediately successful.