The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of May 30, 2023

South Wind, Clear Sky, from the series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji

冨嶽三十六景　凱風快晴

early 1830s

Katsushika Hokusai 葛飾 北斎

(Japanese, 1760–1849)

Japan, Edo period

(1615-1868)

Color woodblock print

Sheet: 25.6 x 37.5 cm (10 1/16 x 14 3/4 in.)

Bequest of Edward L. Whittemore 1930.189

Location

not on view

Fun Fact

During the printing process, the natural grain of the cherry wood printing block was imprinted onto the paper along with the red-colored dye.

Description

Mt. Fuji, Japan’s highest mountain, appeared in most Japanese 19th-century travel literature. Maps sometimes showed its location with a Fuji-shaped icon and indicated where travelers could get the best view of it. Between 1829 and 1833, Hokusai created a print series depicting thirty-six views of the mountain, including this one, sometimes known as “Red Fuji.” The season in this scene is a time between late summer and early autumn, when the mountain takes on a reddish hue.

Inscriptions

Inscription

Signature: Hokusai aratame Iitsu hitsu Publisher: Nishimuraya Yohachi

Provenance
(Yamanaka & Co., New York, NY, sold to Edward L. Whittemore)
?-1930
Edward L. Whittemore [1862-1930], Cleveland, OH, ?-1930, bequest to the Cleveland Museum of Art
1930-
The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH, 1930-present
Citations
Howard Conley Hollis. "The Edward Loder Whittemore Collection of Japanese Prints." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 17, no. 4 (1930): 64-66. p. 64-66
The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978. Reproduced: p. 388 archive.org
Exhibition history

Cleveland Museum of Art Education Department, 1980: Japanese Woodblock Prints: Themes and Techniques.
Cleveland, Ohio: The Cleveland Museum of Art; December 12, 2004- April 10, 2005. "Visions of Japan: Prints and Paintings from Cleveland Collections".

Gallery One Rotation, November 5, 2012 - April 29, 2013.

Japanese Prints from the Museum Collection. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 5-October 28, 1934).

Visions of Landscape: East and West. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 17-March 21, 1982).

Transformations in Japanese Printmaking. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 25-December 30, 1984).

Gallery One 2012. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (December 12, 2012-March 5, 2017).

Source URL: https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1930.189