South Wind, Clear Weather

This extremely simple composition is one Japan’s most iconic artworks, and arguably Hokusai’s most powerful and enigmatic rendering of Mount Fuji. Showing a solitary mountain in russet tones, it is nicknamed “Red Fuji (Aka Fuji ). The title South Wind, Clear Weather indicates that the mountain takes on such an appearance at sunrise during summer, when a warm breeze from the south blows across Japan. In his Fuji series, Hokusai had no interest in actually representing nature as it was, but was rather more intent on creating dramatic views like this one, where he made the mountain much steeper than it actually is. Since he did not sketch from life, it seems somewhat pointless to try to track down the actual location for every view. Even so, however, the location for this particular view is generally believed to be situated somewhere north or northeast of the mountain, in today’s Yamanashi Prefecture.