Distant View of Awajishima

This painting of the island of Awajishima shows the view of it from Maiko, long a favored area for summer homes in the city of Kobe. The setting is the point at which the Akashi Straits, between Kobe on the main island of Honshu and Awajishima, are at their narrowest; it is now the location of the Akashi Kaikyo Bridge. In his sixties, Fujishima turned to painting the scenery in many places with all the passion of a landscape artist. This work, which he created at the age of 62, was the starting point in his exploration of that new field of creative activity. Here a well-balanced group of several houses, including Western-style homes, is arranged on a slope rising from the south, along with fields and trees. The surface of the sea extending into the offing can be described less as calm, with no waves, than as rendered simply, even flatly. Awajishima, on the opposite shore, stretches horizontally, as though to divide the sky from the sea.