One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku hyakkei), Vol. 2 Possibly 1835 - 1836

Editor: This is "One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji, Vol. 2" by Hokusai. It's a book, and this particular image feels almost like a secret glimpse of Mount Fuji through the bamboo. What symbols do you see at play here? Curator: The bamboo, like Fuji itself, are powerful symbols. Bamboo represents resilience, flexibility, and longevity, deeply rooted in East Asian cultures. Notice how Fuji is almost hidden; what does that evoke? Editor: A sense of reverence, maybe? Like something sacred glimpsed through the everyday. Curator: Precisely. The obscured view amplifies Fuji’s symbolic weight. It becomes less about the mountain as a physical entity, and more about its cultural and spiritual significance. We might even say it reflects the power of suggestion, the art of revealing through concealment. Editor: I never thought about it that way. It's fascinating how the bamboo frames not just the mountain, but also our understanding of it. Curator: Indeed. It reveals how deeply embedded cultural memory is within these images.