Mount Fuji

Japan’s grandest peak, with its contours rendered in outlines of pale gray ink with washes to subtly suggest volume, sits above a landscape of rice paddies stretched out before it—employing an unusual sense of perspective that give the impression that the artist was viewing the scene from faraway and above. The central focus of the composition is the area of rice paddies in the middle ground with the subdivided plots (ase 畦) drawing the eye with their bold, abstracted depiction. The overall composition, disarmingly simple at first glance, strikes one as different from anything else in in Ike Taiga’s corpus, though comparisons can be made with depictions of Fifth Month scenes from sets of paintings done by the artist of the theme of Mount Fuji in Twelve Months. Looking closely the brushwork is firm and well controlled. Some of Taiga’s students, including Aoki Shukuya created similar compositions based on Taiga’s model, as did Okada Beisanjin a generation later.

The monk and Nanga painter Geppō (1760–1839), considered third in the Taiga lineage after Shukuya praised this painting on the box inscription, adding to its cachet as a work that was emulated by Taiga’s pupils.