Katsushika Hokusai

Katsushika Hokusai's original Japanese woodcut, Suberi (Sliding Down) appeared as the sixth woodcut in the initial volume of Fugaku hyakkei Fugaku hyakkei (One Hundred Views of Mt. Fuji). For Fujiko pilgrims the most important of all journeys was that to the summit of Mount Fuji. Often the climb up the mountain was slow and arduous. But if one chose the 'shortcuts' the descent was anything but that! This view of the descent shows, as the title indicates, a "sliding down" through the soft volcanic sand that accumulates here and there on the face of the mountain. This was a common mode of quick descent on the Yoshida trail and remained so for many years until twelve people lost their lives there in 1980. The 'sand-run' is now closed to the public.

Twisting this way and that way, Suberi most delightfully captures the pilgrims in a perilous state of free fall. With their broad oval hats and gyrating forms they cling for dear life to their staffs which now becomes their only method of balance and steering. Wonderfully abstract in these components, Hokusai brilliantly indicates the motion of wild descent by the masses of stones and pebbles falling with the pilgrims. Like all the woodcuts in the One Hundred Views, Hokusai's Suberi teaches us a new way of seeing.

Suberi (Sliding Down) is an original Japanese woodcut by Katsushika Hokusai, published and printed by Tohekido. It hails from Fugaku hyakkei Fugaku hyakkei (One Hundred Views of Mt. Fuji), Catalogue # 6. Third edition as issued in Nagoya, c. 1847. This is a striking, original example of the famous landscape art created by the Japanese artist, Katsushika Hokusai.