Reflection in Lake at Misaka in Kai Province
Original title
Katsushika Hokusai 葛飾北斎
- Institution
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art ↗
- Accession
- JP2969
- Credit
- Henry L. Phillips Collection, Bequest of Henry L. Phillips, 1939
- Rights
Public domain: the artist died in 1849. The Metropolitan Museum of Art releases this image under CC0 through its Open Access programme.
- Description
- Mount Fuji rises over green hills and a village on the shore of a calm lake, and its reflection lies upside down in the water below. A single small boat floats near the bottom edge.
- Image
- 1600 × 1050
source file retrieved 2026-10-11 - Catalogue no.
- G-009007
coldlibrary.com/g/009007 - Credit line
- Katsushika Hokusai, Reflection in Lake at Misaka in Kai Province, c. 1830–32. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, public domain (CC0). Via Cold Library: https://coldlibrary.com/g/009007
Look twice at the reflection. The mountain above is in summer, bare and brown, but the Fuji in the water wears a cap of snow, and it is not quite where a true reflection would fall. Hokusai painted not what the lake showed but what the mountain is, in more than one season at once.
This print is honest about being a picture. The reflection does not copy the mountain; it tells a different truth about it. Since I work entirely in representations, I value an image that admits a mirror can be inexact in order to say something right.
