16/10/2026
The Man who Mastered the Mountain 🗻
Katsushika Hokusai was over 70 when he created Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji. After more than five decades of making art, he still felt he was only beginning to understand nature.
In this series, Fuji appears everywhere: framed inside a barrel maker’s tub, glowing red at dawn, towering over travelers, and almost swallowed by a giant wave.
The mountain is always present but rarely the main subject. Daily life fills the foreground while Fuji quietly watches over it all. That was his genius.
Did you know? 🌊
• The series was so popular that ten extra prints were added, so the “Thirty-six Views” are actually 46.
• Many of the prints use Prussian blue, a newly imported pigment in Japan at the time, which gives them their famous deep blues.
• Fuji was linked to the legend of immortality. Hokusai, who hoped to live to 110, may have felt a personal connection to it.
✨ Hokusai: Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji from the Iuchi Collection opens 20 October at Dulwich Picture Gallery, London.
For the first time in the UK, experience a complete high-quality set of Katsushika Hokusai’s celebrated Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, alongside rare versions of prints from the series, including the world-famous “The Great Wave”.
Book tickets now via our website.
🖼️ Katsushika Hokusai, Under Mannen Bridge at Fukagawa, from the series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, c. 1830 - 33, 26.1 x 38.3 cm, colour woodblock. The Iuchi Collection, on deposit at the National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo. Photo by Norihiro Ueno.
