73
Artist
Chūhō SōuJapanese, 1759–1838
Mount Fuji
late 18th or early 19th century
Hanging scroll, ink on paper
Overall: 12 × 21 3/8 in. (30.5 × 54.3 cm)
Mount: 44 1/2 × 23 1/8 in. (113 × 58.7 cm)
Roller: 25 3/16 × 7/8 in. (64 × 2.2 cm)
EX.2023.NW.010
“Since it is not two or three, it is the best there is!”1
Mount Fuji is a potent symbol in Zen painting, representing an immovable mass that is rooted in the ground while also extending above the clouds; both earthly and heavenly, it thus embodies the Zen notion of the nonbinary, something emphasized by Chūhō Sōu’s inscription, which states that Fuji is a single, unified entity. This is further emphasized by the use of nontraditional characters to write “Fuji,” which is expressed here as a homophone that literally means “not two.”
—Bradley Bailey