Hokusai's Mishima Pass in Kai Province (1830): The Single Cedar Tree That Carries the Print's Entire Composition
Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849) published Mishima Pass in Kai Province (Kōshū Mishima goe) in 1830-32 as one of the forty-six prints (the original thirty-six plus ten additional prints added in the 1832 expanded edition) of his Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji series. The print is a colour woodblock — five colour blocks plus one keyblock, printed in editions of approximately 500-1,000 impressions per print across the original 1830-32 run — and shows a single ancient cedar tree at the centre of the composition, its enormous trunk encircled by three travellers attempting to measure it by joining hands, on the Kai-Province mountain road leading toward Mount Fuji. Mount Fuji itself appears in the print's middle distance reduced to a small blue triangle — the named subject of the series is the smallest element in the composition, while the foreground cedar (an element not named in the print's title) dominates the entire visual field. The compositional decision is the print's specific contribution to the series. Hokusai was seventy years old when he began the Thirty-Six Views project and seventy-two when the Mishima Pass print was published; the series would establish him as the most internationally-influential Japanese artist of the nineteenth century.
Hokusai, the Thirty-Six Views, and the 1830-32 commercial commission
The Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji series was commissioned in 1830 by the Edo (modern Tokyo) publisher Nishimuraya Yohachi, who had been working with Hokusai since approximately 1820 on various commercial woodblock projects. The series was a deliberate commercial gamble: Edo woodblock prints in 1830 were dominated by the established subject categories of beautiful-women portraits (bijin-ga), kabuki-actor portraits (yakusha-e), and erotic prints (shunga) — landscape was a marginal commercial category that had not previously been the central subject of a major Edo woodblock series. Nishimuraya commissioned Hokusai for thirty-six landscape prints all centred on a single named subject (Mount Fuji) viewed from different geographical positions and atmospheric conditions, betting that the established commercial market would accept landscape as a major print category if the prints were strong enough. The bet paid off. The Thirty-Six Views was the commercial success of the early 1830s Edo print market, was expanded by ten additional prints in 1832 due to public demand, and made Hokusai the most-commercially-successful single ukiyo-e print artist of his generation. The Mishima Pass print is the most-radical compositional decision within the series — the only print of the forty-six in which the foreground element overwhelms Mount Fuji to the degree of nearly excluding the named subject from the composition entirely.
The cedar tree, the three travellers, and the named-subject displacement
The print's primary compositional element is the single ancient cedar tree at the centre of the visual field — an enormous Japanese cedar (Cryptomeria japonica or sugi, the standard Japanese mountain-road tree species) whose trunk diameter Hokusai has rendered at approximately three or four metres. The three travellers in the foreground are attempting to encircle the trunk with their joined hands — a standard Edo-period measure-by-arms gesture for trees of unusual scale — and have managed to encircle only approximately three-quarters of the trunk's circumference, suggesting that a fourth person would be needed to complete the measure. The visual joke is gentle but pointed: the three travellers have stopped at the cedar specifically because the tree is more interesting than the famous Mount Fuji they were originally walking toward. Hokusai's specific compositional decision is to honour the travellers' decision — to make the cedar the print's primary subject and Mount Fuji the small distant element in the middle background. The decision is the founding statement of what twentieth-century international art-history writing would call the "named-subject-displacement" composition: a picture in which the title's named subject is deliberately reduced to a secondary visual element while an unnamed foreground element dominates. The compositional strategy would be picked up by approximately every major Western Post-Impressionist landscape painter of the 1880s-90s once Japanese prints became internationally available — Van Gogh's 1888 Bedroom in Arles places its title-subject (the room) in the centre but the cropped human-scale objects (the bed, the chair, the small paintings on the wall) overwhelm the room's visual coherence; Monet's 1899 Japanese Footbridge series places the title-subject (the footbridge) at upper-frame but the water-lily pond in the foreground overwhelms it. The descent of named-subject-displacement composition from the Mishima Pass print is one of the load-bearing examples of Japanese-to-Western artistic transmission in the late-nineteenth century.
Why the print matters now
The Mishima Pass print has had two distinct reception phases. The first (1830-1853) was its working Edo commercial life — the print sold steadily through Nishimuraya's Edo distribution network for approximately twenty years and was reproduced in approximately 5,000-8,000 total impressions across multiple editions before the original woodblocks were retired in approximately 1853. The second phase (1853-present) is the international reception that began with the 1853 forced opening of Japan to Western trade after Commodore Matthew Perry's arrival in Edo harbour and the subsequent flood of Japanese woodblock prints into Western European art markets in the 1860s-80s. The Mishima Pass print appeared in the major 1860s-70s Parisian Japonisme collections (the Cernuschi collection, the Goncourt brothers' collection, the Hayashi Tadamasa collection) and was specifically cited by Van Gogh, Monet, and Whistler in their published or surviving private writings on Japanese print influence on their work. The print is now held in approximately twenty-five major international collections in various impression-states (Edo-period impressions, 1860s-70s pre-Meiji reprints, 1880s-90s Meiji-period reprints, 20th-century reproduction editions) and is one of the four or five most-reproduced single ukiyo-e prints worldwide. The 2010s-2020s online visibility is driven by exactly the compositional decision Hokusai made in 1830 — the cedar tree dominates the still-image meme format at phone-screen scale, the small-Fuji-in-the-distance produces the punchline reading that internet audiences respond to, and the three small encircling-trunk travellers provide the human-scale relatability that high-engagement art-history social media content requires.
Key takeaways
Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849) published Mishima Pass in Kai Province as part of Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji 1830-32. Colour woodblock print, ~25 × 38 cm, Ōban size, 5 colour blocks + 1 keyblock. Commissioned by Edo publisher Nishimuraya Yohachi. ~5,000-8,000 total Edo-period impressions across multiple editions before woodblocks retired ~1853.
The 36 Views series was a commercial gamble — landscape was a marginal Edo commercial category in 1830 vs the established beautiful-women + kabuki-actor + erotic-print categories. Nishimuraya bet that 36 Mount Fuji landscapes would work; the bet paid off, the series was expanded by 10 additional prints in 1832 due to public demand, made Hokusai the most-commercially-successful ukiyo-e artist of his generation.
Mishima Pass = most-radical compositional decision of the 46 prints. Foreground single ancient cedar tree (Cryptomeria japonica, ~3-4m trunk diameter) encircled by 3 travellers attempting to measure it by joined hands (standard Edo-period measure-by-arms gesture). Mount Fuji itself reduced to small blue triangle in middle distance. Title subject is the smallest visual element in the composition.
Named-subject-displacement composition: deliberately reducing the title subject to a secondary visual element while an unnamed foreground element dominates. Hokusai's founding statement of this compositional strategy — picked up by every major Western Post-Impressionist landscape painter of 1880s-90s once Japanese prints became internationally available.
Direct lineage to Western Post-Impressionism: Van Gogh Bedroom in Arles 1888 (room-as-title-subject but cropped objects overwhelm), Monet Japanese Footbridge 1899 (footbridge-as-title-subject at upper frame but water-lily pond foreground overwhelms). Van Gogh + Monet + Whistler all specifically cited Japanese woodblock influence in their surviving writings.
Two reception phases: (1) 1830-1853 working Edo commercial life ~5K-8K impressions sold. (2) 1853-present international reception starting with 1853 forced opening of Japan post-Commodore Perry, prints flooded 1860s-80s Western markets. Featured in Cernuschi + Goncourt + Hayashi Tadamasa Parisian Japonisme collections. Now held in ~25 major international collections, one of 4-5 most-reproduced single ukiyo-e prints worldwide.
21st-century online visibility: cedar tree dominates still-image meme format at phone-screen scale, small-Fuji-in-distance produces the punchline reading internet audiences respond to, 3 small encircling-trunk travellers provide the human-scale relatability that high-engagement art-history social media content requires. The compositional decision Hokusai made in 1830 happens to be perfectly optimised for 2020s phone-screen viewing.
Browse Hokusai + Japanese woodblock prints in the archive at zocineartdesign.etsy.com.
Comments