Edutainment > Mount Fuji - seen by Shotei (1871-1945)

Mount Fuji - Shotei I

Japanese Prints - Home
Mt.Fuji from Miho, 1924-27
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Mount Fuji has been a favorite theme for Japanese painters and printmakers for centuries. Woodblock prints made during the period of the shin hanga art movement are especially beautiful and represent a pinnacle in Japanese woodblock art. Shotei (Hiroaki Takahashi, 1871-1945) was one of the leading shin hanga artists. His views of Mount Fuji are among the best woodblock prints of the first half of the twentieth century.

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Mount Fuji - Sacred Mountain of Japan

Mount Fuji is seen by the Japanese as a sacred mountain. The origins of this dormant volcano are, typical for everything Japanese, decorated with mythological legends. Mount Fuji is the uncontested landmark of Japan.

Japanese artists have depicted the conical-shaped Mount Fuji on all kinds of art works for centuries. The most productive among them have been presumably the Japanese woodblock artists. Well known, even by school children all over the world, are the famous woodblock print series Views of Mount Fuji or Views of the Tokaido by Hokusai and Hiroshige.

Lesser known are those thousands, maybe ten thousands of print designs that have been created by practically every noteable Japanese printmaker until our modern days. A "View of Mount Fuji" has always been a challenge for a masterpiece.

Shotei (Hiroaki Takahashi) - 1871-1945

Mount Fuji - Shotei II

Hiroaki Takahashi - Biography
Mt.Fuji seen from Kurasawa
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Shotei (Hiroaki Takahashi) was one of the leading print designers of the shin hanga art movement. He had produced most of his woodblock prints for the publisher Watanabe. Nearly all his designs show romantic Japanese landscapes, and many the sacred mountain - some just as a "casual" background and others as the major subject.

These woodblock prints are in my view among the most beautiful shin hanga prints. The combination of shin hanga as an art style and the majestic mountain, executed in perfection by a great artist and excellent artisans (the carver and printer) is a combination that makes it hard for the viewer not to be mesmerized.

Dieter Wanczura
(August 2009)

Gallery of Mount Fuji Woodblock Prints

Mount Fuji - Shotei III

Prints by Shotei in Mitsugiri Format
Otome Pass
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Mount Fuji - Shotei IV

Biography of Shiro Kasamatsu
Mt. Fuji Seen from Mizukubo, ca. 1935
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Mount Fuji - Shotei V

Shin Hanga Art Movement
Tea House and Mt.Fuji
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Mount Fuji - Shotei VI

Tsuchiya Koitsu - Biography
Mt.Fuji seen from Kurasawa, ca. 1936
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Mount Fuji - Shotei VII

Kawase Hasui - Biography
Mt. Fuji Seen from Tamaho, ca. 1936
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Mount Fuji - Shotei VIII

Hiroshi Yoshida - Biography
Mt. Fuji and Red Torii, ca. 1936
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