Goraikō — Sunrise from Mount Fuji | Hiroshi Yoshida | Japanese Art Print

Four in the morning, at the top of Japan. A handful of climbers huddle on the rocks, and below them, an ocean of clouds stretches to the horizon, waiting for the first light.

In Japan, watching the sunrise from the summit of Mount Fuji has a name: goraikō, "the honorable arrival of light." For centuries, pilgrims climbed through the night to be there at that exact moment. Hiroshi Yoshida, a passionate mountaineer, made the climb himself, and in 1928 he turned it into one of the most serene prints of his Ten Views of Mount Fuji.

The painter who climbed mountains

Hiroshi Yoshida (1876–1950) was a leading master of shin-hanga, the 20th-century revival of the Japanese woodblock print. Trained in Western painting, he brought its light and atmosphere into the traditional technique, and he insisted on supervising every print himself. The margin of this sheet still bears the word jizuri, "self-printed."

Look closer

• The climbers on the dark rocks at left, in straw hats and capes, some resting, one pointing toward the horizon.
• The sea of clouds (unkai), shading from lavender to deep blue, carved in soft, rolling layers.
• The thin line of orange fire where the sun is about to break through.
• The inscriptions in the margin: the series title, the date (Shōwa 3, 1928) and the jizuri mark, in Yoshida's own hand.

In your home

Its soft palette of lavender, grey-blue and dawn orange brings calm to a bedroom, a living room or a reading corner. A natural oak or light wood frame suits it perfectly.

Your print

• Museum-quality fine-art printing on heavy matte paper
• Original proportions, including the paper margin and inscriptions
• Several sizes available · frame not included

Discover more of his mountains, lakes and night scenes in our Hiroshi Yoshida collection, and all our Japanese art prints.