Hokusai

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Hokusai Katsushika
Red Fuji from Hokusai's series, 36 Views of Mount
Fuji
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Hokusai Katsushika October or November 1760May
10, 1849

• Katsushika Hokusai (????) was a Japanese artist,
  ukiyo-e painter and printmaker of the Edo period.
  
  
• In his time he was Japan's leading expert on
  Chinese painting.
  
• Hokusai is best-known for woodblock print series
  Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (1831) which
  includes the iconic The Great Wave off Kanagawa,
  (1820s he was 60)
• Hokusai created 36 Views" both as a response to
  a domestic travel boom and as part of a personal
  obsession with Mount Fuji (Mount Fuji has
  traditionally been linked with eternal life),
  that secured Hokusais fame both within Japan and
  overseas.
• Hokusai was born to an artisan family, in the
  Katsushika district of Edo, Japan
  
• Hokusai began painting around the age of six,
  possibly learning the art from his father, whose
  work on mirrors also included the painting of
  designs around the mirrors.
• Hokusai was known by at least 30 names during his
  lifetime, more then any other major Japanese
  artist. His name changes often related to changes
  in his artistic production and style
• By 1800, Hokusai adopted the name he would most
  widely be known by, Katsushika (part of Edo where
  he was born) Hokusai ('north studio'.).
  
• In 1800 Hokusai published two collections of
  landscapes, Famous Sights of the Eastern Capital
  and Eight Views of Edo. He also began to attract
  students of his own, eventually teaching 50
  pupils over the course of his life.
• He became increasingly famous, both due to his
  artwork and his talent for self-promotion. During
  a Tokyo festival in 1804, he created a portrait
  of the Buddhist priest Daruma said to be 600 feet
  (180 m) long using a broom and buckets full of
  ink. Another story places him in the court of the
  Shogun Iyenari, invited there to compete with
  another artist who practiced more traditional
  brush stroke painting. Hokusai's painting,
  created in front of the Shogun, consisted of
  painting a blue curve on paper, then chasing a
  chicken across it whose feet had been dipped in
  red paint. He described the painting to the
  Shogun as a landscape showing the Tatsuta River
  with red maple leaves floating in it, winning the
  competition
• Hokusai transformed the art form from a style of
  portraiture focused on the courtesans and actors
  popular during the Edo Period into a much broader
  style of art that focused on landscapes, plants,
  and animals.
• Impressionists, including Monet, Degas and
  Toulouse-Lautrec, enthusiastically embraced
  Hokusais work.

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• Courtesan
• Painting on silk.
• 1812-1821.
• Collection of Moshichi Yoshiara.
• The courtesan is almost buried the weight of her
  luxuriously textured and detailed kimono.
  
• Hokusai pays attention to precision and detail
  of the cloth.
  
• The important issue is the flattening of
  surfaces and the use of color fields.
  
• This became a major influence on Western artists
  in the late 1800s into the 1900s.

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Bushu Senju in Musashi Provence. (The Thirty-Six
Views of Mt. Fuji) 1823
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Hokusai Katsushika The Breaking Wave Off
Kanagawa. (The Thirty-Six Views of Mt. Fuji)

• The high point of Japanese prints. The original
  is at the Hakone Museum in Japan. Hokusai's most
  famous picture and easily Japan's most famous
  image is a seascape with Mt. Fuji.
• The waves form a frame through which we see Mt.
  Fuji in the distance. Hokusai loved to depict
  water in motion the foam of the wave is breaking
  into claws which grasp for the fishermen - mans
  vulnerability when faced with the power of
  nature. The large wave forms a massive yin to the
  yang of empty space under it. The impending crash
  of the wave brings tension into painting.
• In the foreground, a small peaked wave forms a
  miniature Mt. Fuji, which is repeated hundreds of
  miles away in the enormous Mt. Fuji which shrinks
  through perspective the wavelet is larger than
  the mountain. In contrast to the fury of the
  ocean, Mt Fuji stands motionless and serene.
  Instead of shoguns and nobility, we see tiny
  fishermen huddled into their sleek crafts as they
  slide down a wave and dive straight into the next
  wave to get to the other side. The yin violence
  of Nature is counterbalanced by the yang relaxed
  confidence of expert fishermen. Although it's a
  sea storm, the sun is shining.
• To Westerners, this woodblock seems to be the
  quintessential Japanese image, yet it's quite
  un-Japanese. Traditional Japanese would have
  never painted lower-class fishermen (at the time,
  fishermen were one of the lowest and most
  despised of Japanese social classes) Japanese
  ignored nature they would not have used
  perspective they wouldn't have paid much
  attention to the subtle shading of the sky. We
  like the woodblock print because it's familiar to
  us. The elements of this Japanese pastoral
  painting originated in Western art it includes
  landscape, long-distance perspective, nature, and
  ordinary humans, all of which were foreign to
  Japanese art at the time. The Giant Wave is
  actually a Western painting, seen through
  Japanese eyes.
• Hokusai didn't merely use Western art. He
  transformed Dutch pastoral paintings by adding
  the Japanese style of flattening and the use of
  color surfaces as a element. By the the 1880's,
  Japanese prints were the rage in Western culture
  and Hokusai's prints were studied by young
  European artists, such as Van Gogh and Whistler,
  in a style called Japonaiserie. Thus Western
  painting returned to the West.
• The Great Wave is from Hokusai's later years.

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The Great Wave off Kanagawa (The Thirty-Six
Views of Mt. Fuji). 1823-1829
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Hokusai Katsushika Thunderstorm Beneath the
Summit . (The Thirty-Six Views of Mt. Fuji)

• This is a pure landscape, similar to Red Fuji in
  composition.
  
• Hokusai offers a simplified image of Mt Fuji. Its
  almost abstract form and composition capture the
  essence of the mountain.
  
• In this simple, yet powerful, vision of Fuji, the
  work is enhanced by the artists use of blues and
  red-browns to create depth and shading.
  
• The lack of a human or animal form is unusual in
  Japanese landscape. Thunderstom is purely a
  landscape, evoking the mystery of nature.
  
• In this work Hokusai has darkened the foreground
  around a dramatic lightning bolt.
  
• The artists Thirty-six Views of Mt Fuji feature
  many different images of the mountain, in a
  variety of seasonal conditions. Through these
  images, Hokusai expresses the power of nature,
  and, in doing so, questions the relationship of
  man to the natural world.

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Thunderstorm at the foot of the mountain.(The
Thirty-Six Views of Mt. Fuji)1823
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Mount Fuji seen from water wheel at Onden.
(The Thirty-Six Views of Mt. Fuji) 1825-29
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Hokusai Katsushika Viewing Sunset over Ryogoku
Bridge from the Ommaya Embankment. (The
Thirty-Six Views of Mt. Fuji)

• This was one of a number of ferry crossings
  between the Sumida bridges.
  
• By the time Hokusai began his Mt. Fuji series, he
  was able to unify vast persepectives into calm
  paintings.
  
• Here, a boatload of passangers gaze at Mt. Fuji,
  in a quiet, plebian scene of ordinary people in
  their daily life.
  
• This realism is Hokusai's unique contribution to
  Japanese art. This print is from the 1840s, when
  Hokusai was already in his 70s and fully
  developed in his artistic skill.
• Hokusai experiments with diverse styles mixed
  Eastern tradition and Western techniques. To
  achieve this mix, Hokusai simplified the formal
  elements of composition, color and line.

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The sunset view across the Ryogoku bridge from
the bank of the Sumida River (The Thirty-Six Vi
ews of Mt. Fuji). 1823-1831

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Hokusai Katsushika In the Mountains of Totomi
Province. (The Thirty-Six Views of Mt. Fuji)

• The location was in what is now the western part
  of Shizuoka
  
• Prefecture and shows a poor logging family, two
  of whom are sawing planks from a huge log
  supported by wood trestles.
  
• To the left another man is sharpening a saw.
• Smoke curles up from a fire and clouds encircle
  Fuji.
  
• One of the finest designs from Hokusais most
  famous series Fugaku sanju-rokkei, the
  Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji. (published by
  Eijudo c. 1830-32).
• An exceptional example of this design, printed,
  apart from light brown bokashi to the edge of the
  smoke cloud, in aizuri, Prussian blue ( Japanese
  berorin, ie Berlin blue, from the place of
  manufacture ).

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In the Mountains of Totomi Province. (The
Thirty-Six Views of Mt. Fuji). 1823

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Hokusai Katsushika Fuji seen from the second
floor of the Mitsui clothing store just north of
Nihonbashi . (The Thirty-Six Views of Mt.
Fuji)

• This was considered a fine spot to view a
  snow-capped Fuji on New Year's Day
  
• Hokusai suggests New Year's Day with the kites
  being flown.
  
• The signs on the gateposts, left and right,
  state "Payment in cash" and "No padded prices."
  
  
• Mitsui clothing store just north of Nihonbashi
  became the Mitsubishi department store of modern
  times

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Fuji seen from the second floor of the Mitsui
clothing store just north of Nihonbashi. (The
Thirty-Six Views of Mt. Fuji)

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Hokusai Katsushika Hodogaya on the Tokaido.
(The Thirty-Six Views of Mt. Fuji)

• Before the time of Hokusai the realistic
  portrayal of a scene had not been a part of
  traditional Japanese art. The use of perspective,
  shading, and three-dimensional drawing, deriving
  from European art had an undeniable impact on
  non-traditional Japanese artists. They gradually
  included these elements of expression in their
  work. The use of realistic methods such as
  Western perspective had an undeniable impact on
  Japanese artists, especially of the Ukiyo-e
  school.
• In Hodogaya on the Tokaido Road, Mount Fuji is
  seen through a screen of twisted pines, planted
  to offer protection from the weather. In the
  foreground a lively group of travellers make
  their way from Edo, to the imperial capital,
  Kyoto.
• For Monet, a screen of trees framing a background
  offered interesting compositional possibilities.
  He explored these possibilities in his Poplar
  series. Foreground and background are painted
  with little indication of the space between them.
  This seems to bring the background forward one
  moment, then push it back the next, helping to
  create a visually intriguing composition.

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Hodogaya on the Tokaido. (The Thirty-Six Views
of Mt. Fuji)

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Nobuto Ura, Bay of Noboto (The Thirty-Six Views
of Mt. Fuji).

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Shimomeguro, a rural village in Edo. (The
Thirty-Six Views of Mt. Fuji). 1823

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The waterfall where Yoshitsun washed his horse
, Yoshino,
Yamato Provence 1832
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• The poet Li Po ( Japanese Ri Haku ) admiring the
  Lo-shan Waterfall. (series of ten prints Shika
  shashinyo, the Poets of China and Japan.)
  
• Doesnt interpret specific poems.
• Published c 1833.
• Li Po is shown in deep contemplation of the
  waterfall, being held back from toppling over by
  two small acolytes.

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• Fighting Cocks.
• Painting on silk.
• Hakone Museum.
• Hokusai also did freehand paintings on paper and
  silk.
  
• Very few Japanese artists were able to work in
  both woodblock and painting.
  
• Note the rooster's very proud and aggressive
  stance.

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• Peonies and Canary
• Woodblock.
• National Museum at Tokyo.
• Before Hokusai, ukiyo-e artists such as Utamaro
  and Kunsai drew birds and flowers as
  illustrations in books.
  
• Hokusai was the first artist to make these
  bird-and-flower artworks primarily as prints.
  
• 1833-1834

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Hokusai Katsushika Sangi Takamura. Women diving
for abalone. (Hundred Poems Explained by a
Nurse)

• Woodblock. National Museum, Tokyo.
• This is from the late 1840s.
• A group of women dive for abalone.
• Women at the lower left are interlaced through
  waves and water.

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Sangi Takamura. Women diving for abalone.
(Hundred Poems Explained by a Nurse)