Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji is a group of woodblock prints by Hokusai, a Japanese artist. The prints show Mount Fuji as seen from many different places. The prints were very successful, and Hokusai made ten more after the first thirty-six. The prints were made in the 1830s.
The Great Wave off Kanagawa, one of Hokusai's most popular prints, is a part of the series. Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji has been called Hokusai's "colour-print masterpiece".
Process
Hokusai started making each print by drawing it on paper. It was glued onto a wood block, to help carve the drawing into the wood. The block was then covered with colored ink, and put onto paper to make the print. For each color on a print, Hokusai had to make a different block.
The first prints in the series were made with shades of blue ink. After the series was popular, versions of each print with many colors were made. Over one hundred prints were planned, but only forty-six were made.
Hokusai later made a book named One-Hundred Views of Mount Fuji. It was published around 1835. It had drawings of one-hundred different views of Mount Fuji in it.