Red Fuji

Look closely at Red Fuji

Begin with the mountain’s outline. Its long left slope rises through bands of clouds towards a summit placed well to the right. Below, tiny triangular marks gather into a forest. The mountain fills much of the image, but the cloud bands pull the eye back across the open sky.

The reproduction here is credited to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, impression 21.6756. Its record names Katsushika Hokusai as artist and Nishimuraya Yohachi as publisher, dates it to about 1830-31, and describes a colour woodblock print on paper. ^[1] That object number matters when comparing its colours with another reproduction of Red Fuji.

Why is Fuji red?

The Met associates the mountain’s reddish appearance with dawn in early autumn, presenting it as a reported phenomenon. ^[5] The title and the weather offer one way into the scene. The materials used to print it offer another.

For the Boston impression, the MFA’s CAMEO database reports iron oxide red at two analysed points on the mountain. Its point map places one near the summit and another farther down the slope. ^[2] The database qualifies its identifications: no samples were removed, and the identifications are not certain. ^[3]

Look from the dark upper part of the mountain to the larger reddish area below. Follow the pale channels near the summit, then return to the uninterrupted expanse of the slope. A name for a colourant does not describe the entire effect of this arrangement. The size of the coloured area, its outline and its relation to the sky all remain available for looking.

How was the summit shading printed?

Rebecca Salter’s printing manual names Red Fuji when explaining hakkake bokashi. She describes shading applied over another colour and explains that the same block can be printed, washed and used again to overprint a gradation. Her example is the shading at the mountain’s peak. ^[4] This is her account of a printing effect, rather than a reconstructed sequence of every operation used for the Boston impression.

Compare the upper mountain with the broad lower slope. Where does the darker area begin? Does it make a sharp boundary, or does the colour appear to change over a wider distance? Keep the complete mountain visible beside a detail so that the shading can be judged within its shape.

Now look at the sky. The horizontal cloud bands occupy a different rhythm from the slope’s diagonal. Near the top, the blue appears darker than it does farther down. Follow that change across the width of the image, then compare it with the darker area near the summit. Similar-looking changes in a photograph need not establish an identical printing operation.

What does the colourant research tell us?

The CAMEO table records nine points for this impression. Alongside the red, it lists Prussian blue, indigo and orpiment in different combinations at other points. ^[2] The names are results attached to particular locations, not a complete recipe for making every Red Fuji print.

The methods page explains that only a limited number of points were investigated and that some colourants may remain unrecorded. It also says that relationships between an examined impression and other versions were generally not explored. ^[3] A careful reading keeps the object number and those limits attached to the results.

Use the museum’s point map as a guide to its research, then look again at the reproduction. The forest’s green marks, the surrounding lower ground and the blue sky do not each reduce to a single flat colour in the image. Nor can a screen’s displayed colour, by itself, identify a pigment. The useful comparison is between an appearance you can observe and an attributed investigation you can read.

Why do different Red Fuji images look different?

The Boston catalogue lists several impressions, including 21.6755 as a blue variant. ^[1] The catalogue’s blue-variant label applies to that separate object number. It gives a reason to check the object number before assuming that two online images reproduce the same sheet.

A photograph introduces further questions. Does it show a different museum impression? Has its outer border been cropped? Is its colour presentation documented? These are checks to make, rather than causes that can be assigned confidently from appearance alone.

The whole reproduction used here retains the border visible in its source file. Compare that outer edge with the mountain’s outline. The border helps distinguish the photographed object from the composition printed within it. A crop can be useful for studying the summit, but it answers a different looking task from a view of the whole.

If one reproduction seems bluer or redder, begin with its credit and collection record. A familiar design is not enough to establish that the same impression, photograph and treatment are being compared.

The trees and clouds deserve a closer look

Follow the forest from the lower left towards the right. Dense groups of triangular marks spread into more widely separated ones. At the boundary with the red slope, the individual marks become easier to distinguish. Consider how few marks are needed before you begin to read a wooded hillside.

Above them, the pale cloud bands cross the blue in broken strips. Trace one band as far as it continues, then switch to the rising slope. The mountain’s edge interrupts the horizontal movement. The two directions can be compared without treating the landscape as a diagram with only one correct route through it.

Finish by returning to the whole image. Notice how much space the mountain occupies and how the summit sits within the cloud pattern. The printing technique and scientific investigations add useful questions to this view; they need not displace the experience of its large shapes.

Keep the museum records separate

Boston records 21.6756 at 24.4 by 38.1 cm and dates it to about 1830-31. ^[1] The Met’s JP2960 is another impression, recorded at 25.4 by 37.8 cm and dated to about 1830-32. ^[5] Keep those measurements with their own object numbers.

The shared design lets us compare the images. Each physical impression still needs its own record, and a photograph still needs its own credit. The colourant evidence discussed here belongs to Boston 21.6756. It should not be transferred automatically to the Met’s sheet or to every image carrying the name Red Fuji.