Hokusai: One hundred views of Mount Fuji
Posted by 3Dsound at Tuesday, August 21, 2007 10:47 AM and is filed under Japan,Illustration,Gallery,Hokusai,Art 
Gallery (updated below)
Bringing Hokusai's Mount Fuji into full view: Fugaku hyakkei 'One hundred views of Mount Fuji': Complete in three volumes – a very good set of a pre-Meiji period impression, Japanese Print Gallery Degener [Japanese woodblock prints, illustrated books and drawings from the 18th – 20th century; online sales; based in Meerbusch, Germany], online at degener.com (accessed 21-
Japanese printmaker, Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849) enjoyed the best of both worlds. He was a wildly creative artist, who re-invented the printmaking conventions of his time, and during his life, he eventually provided deep satisfaction to a large audience.
Today, his woodblock prints continue to excite our imaginations, despite the relative rarity of our ever seeing reproductions of his most famous work (the Great Wave at Kanagawa and a few depictions of Fuji and other prints excepted). Still, we've heard about his influential late work, Fugaku Hyakkei (One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji), which turns out to have been published in three volumes over 15 years. Not in color (like the Great Wave), but rather, monochromatic, the series presents radical and improbable perspectives on Fuji and makes them seem inevitable, as you can see from this online presentation of the complete work.
UPDATE, Sunday, October 28, 2007: Hokusai's Great Wave is one print from the series Fugaku Sanju Rokkei (Thirty Six Views of Mount Fuji), which actually comprises 46 prints. That series can be viewed in its entirty at Man-Pai / Japanese Prints (a Portugese site dedicated to Japanese woodblock prints).
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