Morning after the Snow at Koishikawa in Edo (Koishikawa yuki no ashita), from the series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku sanjūrokkei)
Katsushika Hokusai Japanese
Not on view
From a teahouse balcony, a waitress points out Fuji to a group of visitors. The rectangular porch in which they are enclosed functions as a "picture within a picture," a smaller, isolated composition that can stand on its own but that usually adds something critical to the viewer's experience of the work. In this print, the isolated scene of colorful figures grabs our attention and, through the pointing gesture of the waitress, leads our eye in the direction of Fuji.