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The fisherman Hakuryo and Mount Fuji
Hishikawa Sori 菱川宗理 (active 1789-1818)
1770-1820
- Medium
- Color on paper
- Classification
- Paintings
- Dimensions
- H x W (image): 86.3 × 28.1 cm (34 × 11 1/16 in)
- Culture
- Japanese
- Museum
- Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Asian Art
- Credit line
- Gift of Charles Lang Freer
- Rights
- CC0 (Smithsonian Open Access), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Smithsonian Institution
About this work
Sori's range of subjects, like Hokusai's, was broader than most artists of ukiyo-e. His work included classical literary subjects, such as Six Immortal Poets, and sympathetic renderings of humble peasants, like this fisherman posed in strict profile with the sacred Mount Fuji silhouetted in the background. The colored feather cloak worn by the fisherman alludes to a Japanese legend about the fisherman Hakuryo, who encounters a beautiful spirit near Mount Fuji. Startled by his humble appearance, she flees, leaving behind her feathered cloak (hagoromo). The story became the subject of a famous Noh play.
