Ono Waterfall on the Kisokaido - Katsushika Hokusai Fine Art Print / Canvas

Katsushika Hokusai cut this ukiyo-e woodblock print in oban format as a curtain of parallel Prussian-blue threads. Each line falling the full height of the sheet without a single break, and named it Ono Waterfall on the Kisokaido Road for his print series touring the falls of Japan's provinces.

Three travelers cross a narrow wooden footbridge below, their round packs pale against a moss-green hillside, walking the old mountain trade route that once carried merchants and packhorses between Edo and Kyoto through steep passes.

Prussian blue, newly imported into nineteenth-century Japan and printed here in graduated washes known as bokashi, colors every strand of falling water against a slate-gray stone face. Ochre cliffs and moss-toned pine needles frame the drop.

A vermilion-roofed pavilion balances on the ledge above, watching travelers pass beneath its spray. Rust-colored eroded rock breaks the pine-green canopy at center, echoing the vermilion seals stamped beside Hokusai's brushed signature in the cartouche. Water keeps falling in the same six lines, patient as the road below it.