I looked at a picture in a book, that was sitting alone on a table at our local library yesterday. For about Twenty Minutes. I never do that. I’m not very visual, and I’ve never been greatly inspired by art.

The book was called One Hundred Views Of Mount Fiji with drawings produced by Japanese artist Hokusai in his seventies, during the 19th century. The named mountain isn’t alway prominent in the drawings, but it features in all of them.

As well as the drawings, the book also contains analysis about them, and about the motivations of the artist. I’m not qualified to say whether this commentary was right or wrong. But I was fascinated enough to think I ought to allow a little bit of time to look at one of the drawings. So I did.

The picture I concentrated on contains a scene with 3 men carrying out some operation involving ropes and axes in which they would be chopping down the limbs of a tree. Mount Fuji looks on in the background.

I didn’t try and see anything in the drawing. I just looked. But without trying I found myself noticing things. Things that made me think. I also spent a little time reflecting on the artist, and the connection, thanks to the time he took to notice and draw something 150 years ago, between our two worlds.

So those twenty minutes, surprisingly for me, didn’t drag, or feel like wasted effort. It was a kind of meditation.

I may well return to Hokusai’s world.