Paddy Fields in Ono - Suruga Province by Katsushika Hokusai

This captivating horizontal composition perfectly illustrates the painter’s genius for merging landscape with human labor. Descriptively entitled “Paddy Fields in Ono - Suruga Province”, this major work by Hokusai Katsushika highlights the agricultural activity in Suruga Province. Through this agrarian scene, the artist expresses the immutable harmony connecting men to their homeland. The artwork stands as a precious ethnographic testimony of rural life in historical Japan.

In the foreground of this rich country scene, a group of peasants leads a tight line of five horses heavily laden with huge bundles of brown reeds. The travelers, dressed in traditional blue robes and wearing hats, walk slowly along a road crossing a vast marshy plain covered with wild green grass. White herons of immaculate beauty fly gracefully above the flooded and fertile rice fields stretching as far as the eye can see. In the background, the clean and majestic silhouette of Mount Fuji proudly dominates the entire landscape under a cloudless blue sky. The balanced composition of the artist guides the eye along this hard-working procession.

The artist displays a remarkable precision of craftsmanship in the drawing of animals and human postures. The rendering of the straw textures and the delicate lines of the flying birds demonstrate an absolute mastery of woodblock engraving. This print bears witness to his unique graphic sensitivity.