Hokusai, “Turban Shell Hall of the Five Hundred Arhat Temple”, 1831

Thirty Six Views of Mount Fuji (including The Great Wave), frame from every angle, the venerated mountain, the focus of cults in Buddhist and Shinto faiths. Here, the foreground is cluttered with ordinary people living in Edo, who pause in languid poses to appreciate their surroundings, leaning, pointing, chatting away. A domestic and relaxed foreground gives way to a faraway spiritual backdrop. 

Nothing is recorded in the 'middle ground' which gives a respectful distance to such a deity, a leap between the profane and the sacred which cannot be bridged. A composition formula to be repeated again and again. 

Hokusai, “Turban Shell Hall of the Five Hundred Arhat Temple”, 1831, Colour on Woodblock, 24.7 x 37.3 cm, The British Museum