Lower Meguro (Shimo Meguro)

Catalog note / 解説

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 imp…