凱風快晴 (The South Wind brings Fine Weather)

Katsushika Hokusai, artist

1760–1849

凱風快晴 (The South Wind brings Fine Weather), circa 1831, Edo period (1600–1868)

Portfolio/Series title: 富岳三十六景 Fugaku sanjūrokkei (Thirty-six Views of Mt. Fuji)

Where object was made: Japan

Material/technique: color woodcut

Dimensions:
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 258 x 379 mm
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 10 3/16 x 14 15/16 in
Sheet/Paper Dimensions (Height x Width): 261 x 380 mm
Sheet/Paper Dimensions (Height x Width): 10 1/4 x 14 15/16 in
Mat Dimensions (Height x Width): 14 x 19 in

Credit line: William Bridges Thayer Memorial

Accession number: 1928.7791

Not on display

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Images

Label texts

Exhibition Label:
"Asian Gallery," Jul-2003, Youmi Efurd
These two prints by Hokusai (0000.1027) are from a series of 46 prints titled Thirty-Six Views of Mt. Fuji, begun in 1823 and completed around 1831. Several of the illustrations are studies of the mountain under various atmospheric conditions, as seen here (The South Wind Brings Fine Weather.) The majority depict Fuji as a background against which common people are shown engaged in everyday activities.

Archive Label 2003 (version 1):
Hokusai designed prints of a great variety of subjects, but he is best known for his images of Mt. Fuji. The present print, often referred to as the Red Fuji, was produced as part of his first series of the famous Mt. Fuji, the 36 Views of Mt. Fuji, published from 1825 to 1831.

Hokusai and Hiroshige competed in the production of landscape prints during the mid-nineteenth century. While Hiroshige’s prints can be described as expressing a lyrical evocation of place, Hokusai’s prints are famous for their bold design elements.

Here Mt. Fuji is depicted at either dawn or dusk in the beginning of summer, just after the south winds have begun to blow and clear away the rainy season. A cool breeze can be imagined rustling through the pines depicted on the slope of the mountain.

Archive Label 2003 (version 2):
In late summer or early autumn, when a south wind blows scudding white clouds across a clear dawn sky, the rising sun dyes the slopes of Mt. Fuji a brilliant red. No one who has seen this spectacular sight ever forgets it. South Wind, Clear Sky, also known as the “Red Fuji”, is at once the most abstracted view of Mt. Fuji in the series and the most meteorologically specific.

Archive Label date unknown:
From the same series as The Great Wave, this print is known as Red Fuji. Mt. Fuji takes on a reddish hue during sunrise and sunset. However, the mountain only appears this red under certain climatic conditions that arise when the sky is filled with many small billowing clouds. The clouds that Hokusai depicts in this print indicate that the artist probably viewed Mt. Fuji under those special conditions and created the print out of his memory of the moment.