Photo of "Aka Fuji (The Red Mt.Fuji)" As Same Title As In Hokusai's Famous Ukiyoe-Print

 "Aka Fuji (The Red Mt.Fuji)" is a well-known phenomenon in Japan that occurs when Mt.Fuji gets tinted reddish color from reflection of a sunrise. Actually this photo wasn't taken at dawn but at dusk, but the reddish Fuji reminded me of one of the most famous Ukiyoe-Prints, which is called "Aka Fuji" by Hokusai Katsushika.  
A simple reproduction is shown below.

"Ukiyoe-Print" is a traditional wood-block print and during the Samurai era it was used as common means to spread visual information to others. It looks like a color-print because it was printed for each color separately, for example this "Red Fuji" Ukiyoe-Print needed 5 repetitions to print the five colors of blue, light blue, red, green and sepia. Since Japan didn't have any printing machines back then, there were many craftsmen working for this Ukiyoe-Print factories and divided their work to produce a lot of prints.

With Ukiyoe-Prints, even common people could enjoy seeing famous places, beautiful sceneries, popular actors and pretty girls. Apparently the price for a print was reasonably low, so it can be said that these were like one-page magazines with photos at that time. Therefore, Ukiyoe-Print were used to protect Japanese porcelains when fragile goods were packaged for exports, the same way we use old magazines or old tabloid papers.

However Europeans who imported porcelains were surprised to find the wrapping papers and loved them as beautiful art from Japan. They started to collect them and the Ukiyoe-Prints influenced many European artists. Europeans' appreciation for the Ukiyoe-Print in turn influenced Japanese appreciation for the prints, and Japanese started to value them as Japanese Art. Not only the prints are now expensive, Ukiyoe-Prints from Samurai era became very highly priced antiques.

However, maybe somewhere in the world there are still abandoned hundreds-year-old porcelains made in Japan. If you lucky enough to come across them, you'd better check the wrapping papers!