ABSTRACT
Chapter 9 – ‘A Sudden Gust of Wind (after Hokusai): the absence of Fuji’ – focuses on a close reading of Wall’s A Sudden Gust of Wind (after Hokusai) (1993), alongside the print that inspired it – Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai’s Ejiri in the Suruga Province (c.1830–1832), from his famous Views of Mount Fuji series. While the incongruous temporalities of Wall’s digital montage typically dominate discussions of A Sudden Gust of Wind, I instead explore the connotations of the two neglected words in brackets at the end of the title – (after Hokusai). When we consider Wall’s photograph ‘after Hokusai’ perplexing questions are raised: what is the significance of Mount Fuji’s absence and what does this suggest about the contemporary condition of the picture?
