The Amida Falls in the Far Reaches of the Kisokaidō Road, c.1832
Price range: $245.00 through $295.00
Hokusai turns the head of this sacred waterfall into a perfect circle, a pool of swirling blue that seems to hang in the sky, while the water drops away beneath it in long, straight ribbons. On a ledge beside it, tiny figures sit back and take it all in.
Half landscape, half abstract pattern, it is the kind of picture you keep half-noticing, like the sound of water in the next room. It brings a cool, steady calm to a wall without ever going quiet.
The Amida Falls in the Far Reaches of the Kisokaidō Road, c.1832
The print
Print Quality: Gallery-standard archival pigment giclée, made to order
Media: 308gsm 100% cotton Hahnemühle Photo Rag
Texture & Tone: Super-matte, smooth chalky finish with soft, muted blacks
Longevity: Museum-grade, generational permanence
Photo Rag suits this woodblock especially well. Its smooth cotton surface adds no texture of its own, so the fine carved lines, the soft gradations of blue and the grain of Hokusai’s original sheet, nearly two centuries old, come through exactly as they are.
Sizes available:
30×45cm, 12×18″, fine art print, open edition
40×60cm, 16×24″, fine art print, open edition
Safe, tracked delivery guaranteed worldwide, with sustainable packaging.
The story
This print comes from A Tour of Waterfalls in Various Provinces (Shokoku taki meguri), sometimes called A Tour of Japanese Waterfalls: eight upright prints Hokusai designed around 1832 for Nishimuraya Yohachi (Eijudō), the Edo publisher of his Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji. He was in his seventies, and signed them “Iitsu, formerly Hokusai”.
The Amida Falls lie deep in the mountains along the Kiso Road, the inland highway between Edo and Kyoto. They are named after Amida Buddha; tradition holds that a monk reached enlightenment there. Hokusai framed the source of the falls inside a circle, giving the whole scene an air of mystery. Impressions are held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
