Japanese Print - Katsushika Hokusai - Red Fuji - South Wind, Clear Sky - Series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji - 1965 Yūyūdō Edition

Ukiyo-e print, woodblock print. [Shōwa era reissue using traditional woodblock printing techniques]

Type of print: scenes and landscapes — Fūkei-ga 風景画

Technique: genuine polychrome Japanese woodblock print, or nishiki-e 錦絵, printed in the tradition of mokuhanga 木版画.

🎨 Artist: Katsushika Hokusai 葛飾北斎, signed 北斎改為一筆 — Hokusai aratame Iitsu hitsu, "painted by Iitsu, formerly Hokusai".

Publication date: Shōwa period, published in November 1965. Original composition created around 1830-1832, during the Edo period.

📜 Publisher: Yūyūdō 悠々洞出版 (famous publishing house of the Shōwa era)

Editorial supervision: Tadao Takamizawa

Publication manager: Genichi Hashimoto

📏 Format: 30 × 21 cm with margins and 28.2 x 19.2 without margins — horizontal ōban yoko-e format, supplied with a passe-partout.

Series: 冨嶽三十六景 — Fugaku Sanjūrokkei, Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji

Title: 凱風快晴 — Gaifū Kaisei No. 2 of the series

Also known as The Red Fuji, Fuji in Clear Weather, South Wind, Clear Sky or Aka Fuji 赤富士.

Subject:

The Red Fuji is one of the most famous images in the entire history of Japanese prints. Along with The Great Wave off Kanagawa, it is one of the highlights of the Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji series and one of Hokusai's most instantly recognizable compositions.

Here, no traveler, no boat, and no narrative detail distracts the eye. Mount Fuji occupies almost the entire sheet, monumental and solitary. Its red silhouette rises into a blue sky traversed by long white clouds, while its still snow-capped summit stands out with striking clarity.

The title Gaifū Kaisei evokes a gentle south wind under a clear sky. According to tradition, Fuji can take on this reddish hue at dawn, in early autumn, when light strikes its slopes under particular conditions.

The volcano's flank forms an immense orange-red diagonal, balanced by the bands of clouds that cross the sky horizontally. In the foreground, the forest is reduced to a multitude of small blue and green touches, giving the dizzying scale of the mountain without any human figures being necessary.

The bokashi gradations are particularly beautiful and very well executed in this edition: the blue of the sky intensifies in its upper part, the red of Fuji darkens near the summit then gradually lightens towards its base, before blending into pale and fresh tones. This mastery of color gives the image exceptional depth despite its apparent simplicity.

Condition:

Print in excellent overall condition, presented with its passe-partout. Fresh and luminous colors, beautiful gradations, preserved margins and excellent readability of printing details. The reverse allows observation of the penetration of pigments into the paper, a material characteristic of woodblock printing. Note an old glue spot on the back at the top of the print, barely visible from the back and obviously invisible from the front.

🦝 Our opinion:

Do we really need to tell you that we find this ultimate masterpiece by Hokusai sublime?! This edition is of very good quality, the bokashi gradations are very well executed, the forest is superb, the clouds magnificent and Fuji simply perfect!

With this print, it is possible to acquire a masterpiece by Hokusai, a genuine Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock print and not a simple industrially printed poster.

The perfect compromise for those who, like us, cannot afford an original Edo period edition of the Red Fuji!