You know Hokusai’s The Great Wave off Kanagawa. You’ve seen it over and over again and you might
have already watched a video or two about it. This video, however, isn’t about the Great Wave,
but about the series in which The Great Wave appears: 36 Views of Mount Fuji.
Indeed, the subject of the Great Wave isn’t the Great Wave itself, nor is it the workers
transporting fish, but the tiny mountain in the background: Mount Fuji. It appears another 45
times in the 46 print series, Hokusai adding 10 views of Mount Fuji to his previous 36.
The collection of Ukiyo-e woodblock prints was finished in 1832 and was an homage to Japan’s
tallest mountain. Mount Fuji wasn’t only an overshadowing presence on the Japanese people;
it was a mountain with great spiritual significance, especially in Shinto beliefs.
This homage isn’t only a tribute to the cultural and historical significance of mount Fuji,
but also and, very importantly, to its spirituality.
So I will present to you the 46 Views of Mount Fuji by Hokusai
with the idea that it represents the relationship between Man
and Nature. This seeming harmony is characterized by many dualities; one being the shock between the
eternal and the ephemeral and another being the tension between activity and passivity.
To demonstrate these two dualities in the relationship between Man and Nature, let’s
take a look at the first print of the series, the one we all know, the Great Wave Off Kanagawa.
We see workers transporting fish aboard boats in tremendously dangerous weather.
The scene is paused on a wave towering over the workers and we can only assume that it’s about
to crash onto them and cause serious damage. The duality of the Eternal and Ephemeral
is beautifully illustrated with the ephemerality of the workers.
Not only is their appearance on the water passing, they are, afterall, simply transporting fish,
they’re appearance into existence itself is also short-lived. They are ephemeral in their position
but also in their existence. This existence of theirs seems to possibly be even more short-lived
with the wave breaking over their heads. Contrasting to this ephemerality is the eternal
presence of mount Fuji, towering and looking passively at the scene. This brings us to the
second duality, passivity and activity. As stated earlier, mount Fuji is passive, while the workers
and the wave are active. This shows how nature can both be passive and active. Mount Fuji itself is a
volcano. It’s currently passive, but it’s still technically what we call an “active volcano”.
A bit like the overarching wave threatening death and destruction to the tiny humans in its shadow,
mount Fuji is a wave waiting to crash on its surroundings.
The violence of nature, its effect on humans and the passive presence of mount Fuji
is also represented in Ejiri in Seruga Province. You see here the activity of nature disrupting
the activity of the travellers under the subtle eye of mount Fuji, represented by a thin line.
For this presentation, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to showcase the prints
in the order they were published in, or in a thematic way. I decided that,
to analyze the different views of mount Fuji through the idea
of Man’s relationship to nature, I’d have to focus on Man’s place and role in each prints.
A small minority of prints show either little presence of man or none at all, but, either way,
there is, in the absence of human presence, serenity. These scenes are peaceful, they’re calm
and they feel, in a way, immortal. What I mean by this is that you could look at this scene today or
in one hundred years and the scene could very much look the same. We can take a look at Hakone Lake
in Sagami Province or Fine Wind, Clear Morning to see what I mean by an immortal or eternal scene.
Hokusai seems to make an allusion to the eternal characteristic of mount Fuji
in Umezawa Manor in Sagami Province. He juxtaposes the volcano with the crane,
the latter being an important symbol of longevity in Japanese culture.
The idea of longevity, eternity and time resurfaces all throughout the series. The passing
of time and seasons can be seen, for example, through Shichirigahama in Sagami Province,
where you see snow on tiny rooftops or, even more poignantly, in Reflection in Lake Kawaguchi,
seen from the Misaka Pass in Kai Province. Mount Fuji is represented with little snow
on its peak while, in its reflection, it’s represented as a snowy mountain.
Even through the ephemeral passing of seasons, Fuji remains eternally.
To understand the relationship between humans and nature,
Hokusai showed us what nature is without us. Calm and eternal.
The majority of the prints, however, depict humans which, for a tribute to mount Fuji, is unexpected.
You could have thought that you would see more landscapes and more portraits of mount Fuji,
but no. You see daily Japanese life with a small cameo role for Fuji.
Let’s first take a deeper look at Honganji at Asakusa in Edo. You see workers reparing the
Hongan-ji Temple in Tokyo with, in the background, mount Fuji. This juxtaposition of both the temple
and the mountain is pertinent in more than one way. Notice how both share the same shape and how
both are elevated above clouds. The difference, however, is that one is made by nature and
the other by man. Man has to actively maintain their creations, their monuments.
Fuji, on the other hand, is eternal and will remain without the need for human intervention.
The kite announces the New Year, showing the importance of time for Man and his creations.
Under Mannen Bridge at Fukagawa is also a depiction of humanity’s creations. The print
shows workers under a bridge, told to be 10,000 years old. Is this bridge really 10,000 years old?
To put this in perspective, Younger Fuji, which is the mount Fuji we know today, only started
forming itself between 11,000 to 8,000 years ago. Perhaps, we are in denial of our ephemerality.
The passage of time is also beautifully illustrated in Kajikazawa in Kai Province. Once
again, Fuji is implied with a thin line and a bit of colour. The subject here is the fisherman and
the kid. The subject of time isn’t only implied by the fact that only the two figures in this print
are ephemeral, but also by the fact that we can assume that the man is teaching the child
how to fish. This passing down of knowledge is one of the only ways we can aspire to be eternal.
For the duality between activity and passivity, we can look at In the Mountains of Tōtomi Province.
You see carpenters at work, some cutting wood, another sharpening his saw or taking
a break and admiring mount Fuji. Here, you see the activity of man on a passive nature;
transforming it and molding it to their needs. The composition is more dynamic
than in other prints as a large beam of wood cuts the frame in half. You see white and dark smoke,
possibly signifying destruction or consumption as flames
violently consume the products of nature; echoing the violent potential of tools such as saws.
But the activity of man is not always destructive. In Noboto Bay, there is harmony. You see people
in the water underneath a Torii, which is a gate to a Shinto shrine. The shrine in this
print is a place of worship to the god of the Sea. Perhaps this might be the reason for this harmony.
Adults are harvesting clams while kids are chasing eachother around the gate. This respect for the
god of the Sea; this respect for nature, is perhaps why there seems to be so much harmony.
How Hokusai portrayed man’s relationship to nature is quite interesting. You might have noticed
how most of the time, when Hokusai represented humans, which is in the majority of the prints,
he depicted workers. He rarely depicted, if at all, nobles or the ruling class. These are mostly
working people, mostly farmers, fishermen and craftsmen. These are the people who work in the
closest proximity with nature. In The "Fuji-View Fields" in Owari Province, you see a man making a
wooden barrel. Through his barrel, through his labour, you see, in the distance, mount Fuji.
Hokusai shows human activity at day, or at dawn, but this activity is more often than not
that of working class people. Fuji Seen from Kanaya on the Tōkaidō is one of the most
graphic representation of a worker’s life in the series. You see men carrying produce
across violent waters and worse, you see them carrying other men on their shoulders.
Man’s relationship to nature is mediated by labour.
“Labour is, in the first place, a process in which both man and Nature participate, and in which man
of his own accord starts, regulates, and controls the material re-actions between himself
and Nature. He opposes himself to Nature as one of her own forces,
setting in motion arms and legs, head and hands, the natural forces of his body,
in order to appropriate Nature’s productions in a form adapted to his own wants. By thus
acting on the external world and changing it, he at the same time changes his own nature.”
- Karl Marx, Capital Volume I, Part III, Chapter 7, Section I
“Nature is man’s inorganic body — that is to say, nature insofar as it is not the human body.
Man lives from nature — i.e., nature is his body — and he must maintain a continuing dialogue with it
if he is not to die. To say that man’s physical and mental life is linked to
nature simply means that nature is linked to itself, for man is a part of nature.”
-Karl Marx, Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, First Manuscript, Estranged Labour
I’m not saying here that Hokusai read Marx, but by looking at Man’s Relationship to
Nature through his prints, one cannot deny the importance Hokusai gives to labour.
Hokusai’s Thirty Six Views of Mount Fuji seems to showcase and pay homage to the
people living around mount Fuji rather than the volcano itself. In most prints,
people are minding their own business, working on their own projects and rarely do they ever pay
attention to the mountain. But these rare moments when people do look at Fuji are powerful. When the
figures take a break from travelling or from working to look at the mountain, pausing their
day just to admire it, to give it time; then you understand the spiritual power of Fuji.
Mount Fuji, because of it’s imposing and wonderful presence, forces at least some
characters to rethink their relationship to Nature, how ephemeral we are, how small we are.