Ukiyo-e master Hokusai established a tradition when he traveled around Mount Fuji in the 19th century, illustrating his 36 views of the mountain. He made it the locus of Japan, a prominence that was at once a symbol, not only of the country itself but also of all that was beautiful about it. Its serene slopes have defined Japanese style ever since and its distant regularity has inspired a deification of beauty.
Indeed, Fuji has grown more and more beautiful since Hokusai's time. This is because its elegant grace is always to be defined against the environment, the foreground of any such view. As this has become more and more cluttered, artificial and ugly, the natural splendor of the mountain has become more apparent.
Whether or not this occurred to photographer Chris Steele-Perkins, he has demonstrated it well in this playfully serious book on contemporary aspects of Fuji. He spent three years circling its base and his photographic record of these wanderings discovers a contemporary mountain, one still "a locus in a complex, modern society."
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