A haiku is a short poem which traditionally condenses an intense experience into three short lines. The art of the haiku is to use a minimum of expression to transmit the essence of a reality that is recorded (but not captured) in the immediacy of an instant.

The most well-known of his series, widely recognised as the pinnacle of Japanese landscape painting, are the Thirty-six views of Mount Fuji and the three-volume series One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji. These prints show panoramic views of the mountain from different points, at different times of day and in different seasons. No two views are alike.

Now, the solitary figure wanders like a man shipwrecked in his heart. This is the tragic testimony of the heartbreaking change taking place in modern man’s feeling. All that remains is the mist in the twilight; the desire to return smothered by the impotence of conscience. Or perhaps, behind the curtain of clouds, a latent new dawn has survived in all its glory.

Any shape or area that has not the pulsating concreteness of real flesh and bones, its vulnerability to pleasure or pain is nothing at all. Any picture that does not provide the environment in which the breath of life can be drawn does not interest me.

My intention is to create an atmosphere of fluid transparency, of communion and with a certain slowly expanding energy, that energy that has to do with sensibility and emotion, with a poetic experience. Maybe there is a spiritual or mystic aspect, but I do not think that it is specifically religious or sacred.

“You mean that if I go back to my great-grandparents’ great-grandparents’ great-grandparents... I’d end up at a squirrel?” asked Sugimoto.

“Well, something like that,” answered Yamada.

“Okay... and if we went back to the squirrel’s great-grandparents’ great-grandparents, where would we end up?”

“... in the sea”.