MURA · THE COLLECTION · KATSUSHIKA HOKUSAI

Red Fuji

Red Fuji, properly titled A Mild Breeze on a Fine Day (Gaifu kaisei), is a colour woodblock print by Katsushika Hokusai from the series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, made around 1830–33. The mountain fills the right half of the sheet against a blue sky. This impression, 25.7 by 37.5 cm, belongs to the Art Institute of Chicago.

Katsushika Hokusai · c. 1830/33 · Color woodblock print; oban · Edo period · story written 25 September 2026

What you are looking at

The Japanese title means south wind, clear sky. In early autumn, when the wind is southerly and the sky clear, the rising sun can turn Mount Fuji red, and Hokusai fixed that moment. Three shades of deepening blue in the sky answer three hues on the mountain; remnants of snow linger at the peak and dark shadow covers the forest at its base. Fuji's symmetrical mass on the right is balanced by delicate clouds on the left. Unlike most designs in the series, the print names no place, so the vantage point is unknown.

How it was made

Hokusai, born in 1760, began Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji around 1830, in his seventies and at the height of his career; the series was published by Nishimura Yohachi and grew to forty-six designs. Each print required a separate carved block for every colour. The impressions differ, and the differences are part of the print's history. The earliest, known as Pink Fuji and now very rare, have a deliberately uneven blue sky that gives movement to the clouds and a halo of Prussian blue around the peak. Later printings have a strong, even blue, an added block that overprints the white clouds with light blue, and a heavy Bengal red pigment, benigara, which gave the design its popular name. The green block was also re-cut, lowering the line where forest meets slope. In Japan the Red Fuji is held in even higher esteem than the Great Wave, which is better known abroad.

Where it went

This impression came from Yamanaka and Company, which sold it in December 1905 to Clarence Buckingham of Chicago, a trustee of the Art Institute. On his death in 1913 it passed to his sisters Lucy Maud and Kate Sturges Buckingham, and in 1925 Kate gave his collection of Japanese prints to the museum in his name; the credit line reads Clarence Buckingham Collection. The museum's record lists no exhibitions and no current gallery for it. Other impressions are held by the British Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Why it is in Mura

It belongs to Mura's Japanese Masters collection with a golden mood: a warm red mountain under bands of cloud.