final project

Hokusai The Artist byTravis Harrison

Table of contents3 introduction4. early life5. work and influences6. height of career7. later life

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Katsushika Hokusai (?, September 23, 1760 –May 10, 1849)[1] was a Japanese artist, ukiyo-e painterand printmaker of the Edo period. He was influ-enced bysuch painters as Sesshu, and other styles of Chinesepainting.[2] Born in Edo (now Tokyo), Hokusai is bestknown as author of the woodblock print series Thirty-sixViews of Mount Fuji (富富富富富富Fugaku Sanjūrokukei?,c. 1831) which includes the internationallyrecognized print, The Great Wave off Kanagawa, createdduring the 1820s.Hokusai created the “Thirty-Six Views” both as aresponse to a domestic travel boom and as part of apersonal obsession with Mount Fuji.[3] It was this series,specifically The Great Wave print and Fuji in ClearWeather, that secured Hokusai’s fame both in Japan andoverseas. As historian Richard Lane concludes, “Indeed,if there is one work that made Hokusai’s name, both inJapan and abroad, it must be this monumental printseries...”.[4] While Hokusai’s work prior to this series iscertainly important, it was not until this series that hegained broad recognition and left a lasting impact on the

art world. It was also The Great Wave print that initiallyreceived, and continues to receive, acclaim andpopularity in the Western world.

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Hokusai was born on the 23rd day of the 9th month of the 10th year of the Tokugawa period(September 23, 1760) to an artisan family, in the Katsushika district of Edo, Japan.[5] His childhoodname was Tokitarō.[1] It is believed his father was the mirror-maker Nakajima Ise, who producedmirrors for the shogun.[1] His father never made Hokusai an heir, so it’s possible that his mother wasa concubine.[5] Hokusai began painting around the age of six, possibly learning the art from hisfather, whose work on mirrors also included the painting of designs around the mirrors.[5]Hokusai was known by at least thirty names during his lifetime. Although the use of multiple nameswas a common practice of Japanese artists of the time, the numbers of names he used far exceedsthat of any other major Japanese artist. Hokusai’s name changes are so frequent, and so oftenrelated to changes in his artistic production and style, that they are useful for breaking his life up intoperiods.[5]At the age of 12, he was sent by his father to work in a bookshop and lending library, a popular typeof institution in Japanese cities, where reading books made from wood-cut blocks was a popularentertainment of the middle and upper classes.[6] At 14, he became an apprentice to a wood-carver,where he worked until the age of 18, whereupon he was accepted into the studio of KatsukawaShunshō. Shunshō was an artist of ukiyo-e, a style of wood block prints and paintings that Hokusaiwould master, and head of the so-called Katsukawa school.[1] Ukiyo-e, as practiced by artists likeShunshō, focused on images of the courtesans and

Kabuki actors who were popular in Japan’s citiesat the time.[7]After a year, Hokusai’s name changed for the first time, when he was dubbed Shunrō by his master.It was under this name that he published his first prints, a series of pictures of Kabuki actorspublished in 1779. During the decade he worked in Shunshō’s studio, Hokusai was married to hisfirst wife, about whom very little is known except that she died in the early 1790s. He married againin 1797, although this second wife also died after a short time. He fathered two sons and threedaughters with these two wives, and his youngest daughter Sakae, also known as Ōi, eventuallybecame an artist.[7]Upon the death of Shunshō in 1793, Hokusai began exploring other styles of art, including European styles he was exposed to through French and Dutch copper engravings he was able to acquire.[7]He was soon expelled from the Katsukawa school by Shunkō, the chief disciple of Shunshō, possiblydue to studies at the rival Kanō school. This event was, in his own words, inspirational: “What reallymotivated the development of my artistic style was the embarrassment I suffered at Shunkō’shands.”[4]Hokusai also changed the subjects of his works, movingaway from the images of courtesans and actors that werethe traditional subjects of ukiyo-e. Instead, his workbecame focused on landscapes and images of the daily lifeof Japanese people from a variety of social levels.

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Hokusai had a longcareer, but he producedmost of his importantwork after age 60. Hismost popular work is theukiyo-e series Thirty-sixViews of Mount Fuji,which was createdbetween 1826 and 1833.It actually consists of 46prints (10 of them addedafter initial publication).[4] In addition, he is re-sponsible for the 1834One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku Hyak-kei?), awork which “is generally considered the master-piece among hislandscape picture books.”[4] His ukiyo-e trans-formed the art formfrom a style of portraiture focused on the courte-sans and actorspopular during the Edo Period in Japan’s cities into a much broaderstyle of art that focused on landscapes, plants, and animals.[7] Acollection of 300-year-old woodblock Thirty-six Views of Mount Fujiprints, contained in the wellness spa of the Costa Concordia waslost during the collision of the ship on January 13, 2012.[15]Both Hokusai’s choice of nom d’artiste and fre-quent depiction of Mt.Fuji stem from his religious beliefs. The name Hokusai (?)

means “North Studio (room),” an abbreviation of Hokushinsai () or “North Star Studio.” Hokusai was a member of the Nichirensect of Buddhism, who see the North Star as as-sociated with thedeity Myōken (?).[4] Mount Fuji has traditionally beenlinked with eternal life. This belief can be traced to The Tale of theBamboo Cutter, where a goddess deposits the elixir of life on thepeak. As Henry Smith expounds, “Thus from an early time, Mt. Fujiwas seen as the source of the secret of immortality, a tradition thatwas at the heart of Hokusai’s own obsession with the mountain.”[3]The largest of Hokusai’s works is the 15-volume collection HokusaiManga (), a book crammed with nearly 4,000 sketchesthat was published in 1814.[4] These sketches are often incorrectlyconsidered the precedent to modern manga, as Hokusai’s Manga is a collection of sketches (of ani-mals, people, objects, etc.), differentfrom the story-based comic-book style of modern manga.[4]

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The next period saw Hokusai’s association with theTawaraya School and the adoption of the name “TawarayaSōri”. He produced many brush paintings, called surimono,and illustrations for kyōka ehon (illustrated book ofhumorous poems) dur-ing this time. In 1798, Hokusaipassed his name on to a pupil and set out as anindependent artist, free from ties to a school for the firsttime, adopting the name Hokusai Tomisa.By 1800, Hokusai was further developing his use of ukiyo-efor purposes other than portraiture. He had also adoptedthe name he would most widely be known by, KatsushikaHokusai, the former name referring to the part of Edo

where he was born and the latter meaning, ‘north studio’.That year, he published two collections of land-scapes,Famous Sights of the Eastern Capital and Eight Views of Edo. Healso began to attract students of his own, eventually teaching 50pupils over the course of his life.[7]He became increasingly famous over the next decade, both due tohis artwork and his tal-ent for self-promotion. During a Tokyo festivalin 1804, he created a portrait of the Buddhist priest Daruma said tobe 600 feet (180 m) long using a broom and buckets full of ink.Another story places him in the court of the Shogun Iyenari, invitedthere to compete with another artist who prac-ticed more traditionalbrush stroke painting. Hokusai’s painting, cre-ated in front of the

Shogun, consisted of painting a blue curve on paper, then chasing a chicken across it whose feethad been dipped in red paint. He described the painting to the Shogun as a landscape showing theTatsuta River with red maple leaves floating in it, winning the competi-tion.[9]1807 saw Hokusai col-laborate with the popu-lar novelist Takizawa Bakin on a series of illustratedbooks. The two did not get along due to artistic differences, and their collaboration ended duringwork on their fourth book. The publisher, given the choice be-tween keeping Hokusai or Bakin on theproject, opted to keep Hokusai, emphasiz-ing the importance of illustrations in printed works of theperiod.[10] In 1811, at

the age of 51, Hokusai changed his name to Taito and entered the period inwhich he created the Hokusai Manga andvarious etehon, or art manuals.[1] Theseetehon, beginning in 1812 with QuickLessons in Simplified Drawing, served as aconvenient way to make money and attractmore students. The first book of Hokusai’smanga, sketches or cari-catures thatinfluenced the modern form of comics knownby the same name, was published in 1814.Together, his 12 vol-umes of manga pub-lishedbefore 1820 and three more publishedposthumously include thousands of drawings of animals, religious figures, and everyday people. Theyoften have humorous overtones, and were very popular at the

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The next period, beginning in 1834, saw Hokusai workingunder the name “Gakyō Rōjin Manji” (The Old Man MadAbout Art).[8] It was at this time that Hokusai producedOne Hundred Views of Mount Fuji, another sig-nificantlandscape series.[12]In the postscript to this work, Hokusai writes:“ From around the age of six, I had thehabit of sketching from life. I became anartist, and from fifty on began producingworks that won some reputation, butnothing I did before the age of seventywas worthy of attention. At seventy-three,I began to grasp the structures of birdsand beasts, insects and fish, and of theway plants grow. If I go on trying, I willsurely understand them still better by thetime I am eighty-six, so that by ninety Iwill have penetrated to their essentialnature. At one hundred, I may well have apositively divine understanding of them,while at one hundred and thirty, forty, ormore I will have reached the stage whereevery dot and every stroke I paint will be alive. May Heaven, that grants long life,give me the chance to prove that this isno lie.[1]

In 1839, disaster struck as a fire destroyed Hoku-sai’s studio and much of his work. By this time, hiscareer was beginning to wane as younger artists

such as Andō Hiroshige became increasinglypopular. But Hokusai never stopped painting, and completed Ducks in a Stream at the age of 87.[14]Constantly seeking to produce better work, he apparently exclaimed on his deathbed, “If only Heavenwill give me just another ten years... Just another five more years, then I could become a realpainter.” He died on May 10, 1849, and was buried at the Seikyō-ji in Tokyo (Taito Ward).[1]

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