Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji

The complete Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji by Katsushika Hokusai — forty-six woodblock prints (the original thirty-six plus ten supplementary views) that constitute the most famous series in the history of Japanese art. The Great Wave off Kanagawa, with its towering claw of water about to crash over tiny fishing boats, is one of the most reproduced images in the world. But the series is far more than a single icon: it is a sustained meditation on Japan's sacred mountain seen from every angle, in every season, through every weather — framed by cherry blossoms, glimpsed through barrel-makers' hoops, dwarfed by a thunderstorm, reflected in a still lake. Hokusai made these prints in his seventies, at the height of his powers, and they represent the culmination of the ukiyo-e tradition. Their influence on Western art was profound: Monet, Van Gogh, and Whistler all collected and studied them.