South Wind, Clear Sky (Gaifū kaisei), also known as Red Fuji, from the series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku sanjūrokkei)

In the pictureA single Mount Fuji fills most of the picture. The mountain is reddish brown in the early morning sunlight, snow remains in white streaks near the summit, and the lower slopes are dark green forest. The sky is a blue that deepens toward the top, with white clouds like ripples lined up horizontally across it. There are no people, boats or houses.

BackgroundAlongside Under the Wave off Kanagawa, it is the most famous print in Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, and it is commonly called Red Fuji. It captures the moment when, on a clear late-summer day with a south wind blowing, the mountain looks red in the dawn light. With only three colors (reddish brown, green and blue) and a single triangular form, the woodblock technique of layering colors is laid bare.

Puzzle tipAs a puzzle it looks simple, but it gets hard if you let your guard down. Place sky pieces vertically by the depth of the blue, which darkens toward the top, and horizontally by the cloud pattern. The red face of the mountain retains faint traces of the woodblock grain, which you can make out when zoomed in. Joining the boundary lines of the snow at the summit and the forest at the foot first gives you the shape of the mountain.