Katsushika Hokusai's Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji and the three
volumes of his subsequent One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji show his
fascination with a single motif: Mount Fuji. Hokusai's near-obsession
with Fuji was part of his hankering after artistic immortality. In
Buddhist and Daoist tradition, this mountain was thought to hold the
secret to eternal life, as one popular interpretation of its name
suggests: fu-shi ("not death").
Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji was produced from 1830 to 1832, when
Hokusai was in his seventies and at the height of his career. Among the
prints are three of the artist's most famous: The Great Wave of
Kanagawa; Fine Wind, Clear Morning; and Thunderstorm Beneath the
Summit. By the time he created his second great tribute to Mount Fuji,
three volumes comprising One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji, he was using
the artist names "Gakyo Rojin" ("old man crazy for painting") and
"Manji" ("ten thousand things" or "everything"). Contrasting the
mountain's steadfastness and solidity with the changing world around it,
Hokusai depicts Fuji through different seasons, weather conditions, and
settings, and in so doing communicates an important message: while life
changes, Fuji stands still.
Including all illustrations from these two masterful series, Hokusai's
Fuji also features many of Hokusai's earlier renditions of the
mountain, as well as later paintings. In this way, through Mount Fuji,
this volume traces a history of Hokusai's oeuvre.