Hokusai’s Fuji: Storms, Stillness, and the Sacred Mountain

In the early 1830s, a Japanese artist in his seventies created what would become one of the most recognized artworks in the world. Katsushika Hokusai’s series Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji is more than a masterclass in ukiyo-e woodblock printmaking, it’s a meditation on time, nature, and one man’s lifelong obsession with a mountain.

Known simply as Hokusai, he was a restless, prolific artist, and over the course of his long career, he produced paintings, sketches, instructional books, and prints under dozens of different names. He called himself “the old man mad about drawing,” and believed true mastery would come only with age, famously stating that by the time he turned 100, he might finally understand nature. And indeed, it wasn’t until he turned 70 that he produced the series that would define his legacy: Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji. See, it’s never too late!

Fuji had long been an object of spiritual and cultural significance in Japan, a sacred site in Shintoism, a symbol of eternity in literature, and a subject in poetry and art for centuries. But Hokusai approached it with a new lens. His views weren’t simply about the mountain itself, but about how it existed in the landscapes and lives around it.

Each image shows Mt Fuji, albeit sometimes so small it’s almost obscured - as the world shifts, works, and weathers around it. The series celebrates the mundane and the monumental with equal reverence.

Undoubtedly the most famous image in the series (and in all of Japanese art) is The Great Wave off Kanagawa. Often mistaken as a tsunami, the wave is more likely a towering rogue wave, moments before it crashes on to fishermen below. In the distance, dwarfed by foam and fear, sits the serene triangle of Mount Fuji.

Art historians have found this composition remarkable for several reasons:

Perspective: Hokusai uses the Western technique of linear perspective, a rarity in Japanese art at the time, to frame Fuji in the gap beneath the wave’s curve.

Dynamic Tension: The wave is frozen in an almost sculptural moment of power, claws of foam reaching forward like fingers. The boats below are fragile, huddled - humanity at the mercy of nature.

Colour and Contrast: Deep indigo Prussian blue, then a relatively new import to Japan, lends the scene both depth and drama. It contrasts sharply with the still, pale silhouette of the mountain.

Despite its energy, The Great Wave isn’t just about violence. It's about the juxtaposition of permanence and impermanence - the wave will crash, the boats may capsize, but Fuji will remain, unmoved. It’s a Buddhist concept rendered in graphic, unforgettable form.

But as the name says, there are 36 views to consider, though right now we’ll briefly look at only another two. One of the most acclaimed is South Wind, Clear Sky, more commonly called Red Fuji. Unlike The Great Wave, this image is all calm. Here, Fuji is the star, bathed in early morning sunlight, its flanks turned a rich, warm red. The composition is minimal, almost abstract, with subtle colour gradations.

What makes Red Fuji so compelling is its quiet majesty. There’s no human drama, just the mountain and the changing light. Hokusai shows that Fuji doesn’t need other elements to command attention; it simply exists, and that’s enough.

But where Red Fuji is meditative, Thunderstorm Beneath the Summit is brooding. In this print, Fuji looms dark and solid, while beneath its peak a stylized flash of lightning splits the sky. The mood is ominous, charged. The symmetry of the mountain is disrupted by the storm, suggesting that even the eternal has its moments of turbulence.

While Hokusai embraced imported materials like Prussian blue and experimented with perspective and layering, what truly sets this series apart from most of his contemporaries' work was his ability to find meaning in variation. Each view is a different emotion, a different way of seeing. Ultimately, Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji is about more than a mountain. It’s about constancy and change - how the world turns, waves rise, and storms come and go, but some things endure. Two centuries later, these prints remain fresh, immediate, and quietly profound.

If you’d like to see more (and even own) some of Hokusai’s work, visit my website at https://www.frenchandvintage.biz/picture-repro-japanese, where I’m offering a range of posters from a Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibition of his work. The Big Three – his most famous images, are available, but there are also quieter, less dramatic but no less beautiful views of this iconic mountain.

These images are available as digital downloads for only $2.99, for you to print yourself, use as screen savers, or whatever you like. But if you’d prefer me to print them for you, they’re also available in a range of sizes and all are reasonably priced.