Art is a journey into the most unknown thing of all - oneself. Nobody knows his own frontiers… I don’t think I’d ever want to take a road if I knew where it led.

Louis Kahan

KATSUSHIKA HOKUSAI (1760 - 1849)
Gaifu kaisei [South Wind, Clear Weather], ‘Red Fuji,’ from the series Fugaku sanjurokkei [The Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji], signed Hokusai aratame litsu hitsu [from the brush of Hokusai, changing to litsu], published by Nishimuraya Yohachi [Eijudo]

Notes : This fine early and important impression uses a lighter and noticeably more delicate palette where the red is replaced by pink and creates a very different mood compared to the normal ‘Red Fuji’. The pale green reaches further up the mountain than in other cases and forms a distinct curve where it becomes pink and the sky is a much lighter blue.1 This impression is exceedingly rare and unusual, with only five copies known to exist, one of which is held by the Atami Museum of Art.2
1. Tim Clark, One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji, (London, 2001), no.53
2. MOA Bijutsukan, Katsushika Hokusai: Fugaku sanju-rokkei, (Atami, 1982), no.1

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    One of the great classics.
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