print
- Museum number
- 1902,0212,0.396.27
- Title
-
Object: Izu no sanchu 伊豆の山中 (In the Mountains of Izu Province)
-
Series: Fuji sanjurokkei 冨士三十六景 (Thirty-six Views of Fuji)
- Description
-
Colour woodblock oban print. View of Mt Fuji on Izu Peninsula; river and waterfall in mountain valley; one path each side of river with one figure walking; Mt Fuji in distance with surrounding cloud. Inscribed, signed, sealed and marked.
- Production date
- 1859 (?spring)
- Dimensions
-
Height: 35.40 centimetres
-
Width: 24.20 centimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
-
-
-
- Curator's comments
- Clark 2001
The view is from somewhere on the Izu Peninsula, south-southeast of Mt Fuji. The title 'in the mountains' leaves us guessing as to the exact location, and this lack of specificity to many of the designs is one of the main criticisms that has in the past been levelled at the series ('... sotaijikkei-kan ni toboshii.' Suzuki 1970, text p. 80). As with the last (cat. 86), Hiroshige has gained several hints from Hokusai's 'One Hundred Views of Mt Fuji' (For example, 'Mountains upon mountains' and 'Fuji from a Pine Mountain', both from volume one. See Smith 1988, nos 1/15 and 1/18). Pointing all this out, however, does not detract from the calm induced by the formal balance of this composition, in which the skilled wiping of the colour blocks in numerous places has surely been encouraged by the artist to further articulate the depth of his design. The foreground is shrouded in gloom so that Fuji can rise white and ethereal in the distance. The simple combination of mountains, trees and water, presents landscape at its most elemental.
Literature:
Binyon, Laurence. 'A Catalogue of Japanese and Chinese Woodcuts in the British Museum'. London, British Museum, 1916, [Hiroshige] no. 532.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
Exhibited:
2001, 11 May-29 Jul, BM Japanese Galleries, '100 Views of Mount Fuji'
2007 Nov 28-2008 Jan 20, Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, UK, 'Utagawa Hiroshige: The Moon Reflected'
2008 Mar 8-Apr 26, Grundy Art Gallery, Blackpool, UK, 'Utagawa Hiroshige: The Moon Reflected'
2008 Oct-2009 Feb, BM Japanese Galleries, 'Japan from prehistory to present'
- Acquisition date
- 1902
- Department
- Asia
- Registration number
- 1902,0212,0.396.27