Mount Fuji and Eggplants 

Sometime in the 18th century, Hakuin Ekaku painted Mount Fuji and Eggplants with ink on paper. There’s a real immediacy to this work. The artist used a brush to lay down fields of diluted black ink, with quick flicks of the wrist to describe the leaves and the pointed peak of Mount Fuji. It looks like he was really working fast, not worrying too much about getting it perfect, but just capturing the essence of these forms. When we think about a work like this, it’s tempting to think of the artist as a kind of solitary genius, but that would be too simple. Paper production in Japan at this time involved a highly organized system of labor. Think also about the trade networks that supplied the ink, and the cultural values that associated calligraphy with a higher state of mind. The artist drew on all of this. By thinking about the wider context of production, we can begin to understand the significance of this work, in a way that transcends any division between craft and fine art.