↗South Wind, Clear Sky, from Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji
Katsushika Hokusai
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Read the artwork notes and catalogue information.The Museum of Modern Art · Catalogue source ↗ · Image policy ↗
This woodcut is part of Onchi’s Lyric sequence. Compare it with his earlier illustrated book to follow printmaking across different formats and periods; the shared medium does not mean that the works have identical visual aims.
Original educational overview · based on the linked museum recordCompare the broadly dated figurative Mother and Child with the 1934 illustrated book and the abstract 1951 Lyric. Printed line, shape and colour can carry narrative or work without a recognisable subject. Because the first work is dated 1915–55, it cannot securely be presented as his youthful stage; the biography supplies context the object date cannot.
Artist-wide context; individual works may differ.
Woodcuts and illustrated books combine printed shapes with experiments in image-text relationships.
Organic forms and abstract arrangements extend beyond descriptive outline.
Colour and tonal relationships can carry a lyrical effect without a recognisable subject.
Start with what you can see: shapes, surface, colour and scale. How might the listed materials affect the way this object was made and experienced?
Looking prompt · an invitation to observe, not a historical interpretation.
↗Katsushika Hokusai
↗Utagawa Hiroshige
↗Kitagawa Utamaro
↗Utagawa Kuniyoshi