Title : Lower Meguro

Artist : Katsushika Hokusai

Date : c. 1830 - 1834

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Source : Honolulu Museum of Art
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Description : This print is considered one of Hokusai’s most complex and interesting compositions in the Fuji series. Hokusai fills the foreground with thatched roofs, haystacks, and hills that curve up at the left and right, thus creating an open space that dips in the center, in the middle ground. Fuji stands low along the horizon at the dip. On the right, the hilly lands climb step by step to fields terraced for cultivation. The slope is marked by leggy pine trees that stretch their branches to the sky. To the left, a farmer with a hoe over his shoulder walks up the hill. In the foreground, right of center, two falconers are probably asking a third man about the path to the top of the hill. Now an important subcenter to the south of Tokyo, Shimo Meguro was a small village in what was, in Hokusai’s time, a suburb of Edo. Yellow and two shades of green contrast with the pink on the roofs and the indigo blue of the sky. The key-block was printed in blue. (The Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, HOKUSAI AND HIROSHIGE – Great Japanese Prints from the James A. Michener Collection, Honolulu Academy of Arts: The Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, 1998 Page 79. Cat. 30) *************** Beyond a band of mist separating the viewer from the scene, the thatched roofs and haystacks of a farming village anchor the composition in the lower left. Behind them terraced fields rise on gently sloping hills to either side. A man climbs the path to his field on the left, while another farmer chats with two men bearing falcons on their shoulders; the area was renowned for falconry. Mount Fuji is blended so subtly into the landscape that the viewer almost misses it on first glance, attracted only by its snow-capped summit gleaming in the distance. The palette of tan, shades of green, and blue, with blue key block outlines, is particularly harmonious in this print, creating an idyllic pastoral setting. “Hokusai’s Summit: Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji” (09/24/2009-01/06/2010) ******************************

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