South Wind, Clear Sky (Red Fuji)
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About South Wind, Clear Sky (Red Fuji)
For a few clear mornings, Mount Fuji can wake up red.
Hokusai caught that brief light and made the mountain enormous: one warm red-brown slope, a last cap of snow, and a dark fringe of trees along the bottom. The trees are so tiny that they work like a measuring stick. Suddenly the simple triangle feels almost too large for the paper.
Nothing dramatic is happening. There are no boats fighting waves, no travelers on a road, and no buildings at the foot of the mountain. A few white clouds drift across the deep blue sky. Fuji simply stands there, changing color as the day begins.
This print belongs to Hokusai’s Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, the same series as The Great Wave. In that famous picture, Fuji is a small, calm shape behind the sea. Here, the mountain gets the whole stage—and morning light becomes the event.
Artwork details
- Artist
- Katsushika Hokusai
- Date
- ca. 1830–32
- Medium
- Woodblock print; ink and color on paper
- Dimensions
- 24.4 × 35.6 cm
- Collection
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Accession number
- JP9
