Mount Fuji and Lake Kawaguchi

Description

Mount Fuji and Lake Kawaguchi is part of a series of prints of the Mount Fuji made by Okada Koichi in the 1950s for woodblock print publisher Unsodo. Like the other prints in the series, it depicts Mount Fuji, along with a water body. In some cases that is the sea (as with Okada Koichi - Mount Fuji from the coast of Hagoromo), but here it is one of the five lakes around Mount Fuji, namely Lake Kawaguchi. The design makes it seem as if one is looking past the branches of a Cherry tree, an often used technique by woodblock artists to enhance the experience of depth. Far away is the Mount Fuji, up in the sky, and reflected in the calm Lake. Judging by the blossoming Cherry tree, it must be the very end of winter, or, more likely, early spring. The colors of the Cherry blossoms resonate with the colors of the Mount Fuji and its reflection, all together making this perhaps the calmest and most serene composition in the series. The colors of the Cherry blossoms, and in line with that those of the Mount Fuji and its reflection, can vary quite a lot between editions. They range from quite strong, to very light, almost white. This is why we have listed this design multiple times. The current print is a quite light version, close in color to the first editions from the 1950s.