Tatekawa in Honjō - Katsushika Hokusai

A woodblock print from Hokusai's Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, capturing the daily activity of a lumberyard in the Honjō district of Edo.

This woodblock print is part of the celebrated series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji by Katsushika Hokusai. The composition depicts a lumberyard located at Tatekawa in the Honjō district of Edo. Hokusai employs a geometric approach to the scene, contrasting the verticality of the stacked timber with the horizontal expanse of the canal and the distant horizon.

The foreground is occupied by labourers engaged in the physical work of the yard. One figure stands atop a high stack of wood, tossing a piece down to a colleague below, while another worker saws a plank. These human activities provide a sense of scale and daily life within the industrial setting. The tall, thin lines of the stacked lumber create a rhythmic pattern that draws the eye across the frame.

In the distance, the iconic silhouette of Mount Fuji appears, framed by the vertical lines of the timber. The use of Prussian blue, a pigment that had recently become available in Japan, is evident in the sky and the water, providing a cool contrast to the warm, earthy tones of the wood and the thatched roofs of the nearby buildings. Hokusai balances the busy, textured foreground with the serene, simplified depiction of the mountain. This print demonstrates the artist's interest in the intersection of human labour and the natural environment, a recurring theme throughout his later career. The work is a fine example of the technical precision achieved by the carvers and printers who collaborated with Hokusai to produce these iconic images of Edo-period Japan.