Mt. Hotaka at Daybreak 1957

Susumu Yamaguchi made this woodblock print of Mt. Hotaka at Daybreak sometime in the 20th century, and right away you can see this isn't your everyday landscape. The palette is kind of unreal, the kind of colours that make you stop and wonder, how did he do that? I love the texture of the print. You can almost feel the grain of the wood, especially in the sky. The pink on the peaks, it's so vibrant, it practically glows. It's like Yamaguchi captured a fleeting moment when the sun first hits the mountain. And those diagonal strokes? They give the whole thing a sense of movement, like the mountain is breathing. Looking at this, I think of someone like Marsden Hartley, who also painted mountains with this kind of bold colour and simplified form. Art's just one big conversation across time, right? Yamaguchi's print is a reminder that there's always room to see the world in a new way.