Details

A curtain of rain falls like silk threads across the landscape, veiling the distant form of Mount Fuji in Paul Binnie’s Downpour Over Mt. Fuji. The mountain—so often cast in clarity and light—is here subdued, almost spectral, as if emerging from memory rather than geography. The sky churns with deepened clouds rendered in rich, mottled purples, while vertical lines of precipitation draw the viewer downward into a quiet, meditative stillness. It is a scene of transience and hush, caught between visibility and vanishing.

This print was created during a series of printing demonstrations in 2001, in which Binnie utilized each impression to explore variation in pigment, paper, and atmospheric tone. No two impressions are alike; each carries a distinct sense of weather and mood. This particular sheet features wetter, darker pigments than most, lending the composition a deeper tonal gravity and diffused cloud structure that suggests a heavier sky and approaching dusk.

Connoisseur's Note

Downpour Over Mt. Fuji stands apart within Binnie’s early landscape work, not simply for its technical finesse but for the spirit of experimentation that shapes every impression. During its creation, Binnie deliberately employed a diverse array of handmade washi—ranging from bright white to soft buff tones—and mixed his pigments freshly for each print session. As a result, the series feels less like a fixed edition and more like a poetic sequence of visual improvisations.

This particular impression is distinguished by its denser use of ink, especially in the cloud forms, which dissolve softly into the rain-soaked sky. The palette leans toward a twilight coolness, casting the landscape in an introspective, almost dreamlike atmosphere. For the discerning collector, this is a work that captures Binnie’s painterly sensitivity in woodblock—a fleeting storm held still, the mountain momentarily revealed, then obscured again.