Hokusai

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This article is about the Japanese artist. For the eponymous crater on Mercury, see Hokusai (crater).

Hokusai( )

KatsushikaHokusai,inan1839selfportrait

Born Tokitar

supposedlyOctober31,1760

Edo(presentdayTokyo),Japan
 Died May10,1849(aged88)

Edo(presentdayTokyo),Japan

Nationality Japanese

Knownfor UkiyoePainting,mangaandWoodblockPrinting

Notablework TheGreatWaveoffKanagawa

In this Japanese name, the family name is Katsushika.

Katsushika Hokusai ( ?, listen (helpinfo), c. October 31, 1760 May 10, 1849) was a
Japanese artist, ukiyo-e painter and printmaker of the Edo period.[1] He was influenced by Sessh Ty and
other styles of Chinese painting.[2] Born in Edo (now Tokyo), Hokusai is best known as author of
the woodblock print series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji ( Fugaku Sanjroku-kei?, c.
1831) which includes the internationally iconic print, The Great Wave off Kanagawa.

Hokusai created the "Thirty-Six Views" both as a response to a domestic travel boom and as part of a
personal obsession with Mount Fuji.[3] It was this series, specifically The Great Wave print and Fine Wind,
Clear Morning, that secured Hokusais fame both in Japan and overseas. As historian Richard
Lane concludes, "Indeed, if there is one work that made Hokusai's name, both in Japan and abroad, it must
be this monumental print-series".[4] While Hokusai's work prior to this series is certainly important, it was not
until this series that he gained broad recognition.[5]

Contents
[hide]

1Early life and artistic training

2Height of career

3Later life

4Shunga

5Works and influences

o 5.1Selected works

o 5.2Influences on art and culture

6Notes

7References
 8Further reading

o 8.1General biography

o 8.2Specific works of art

o 8.3Art monographs

9External links

o 9.1Prints

o 9.2Biographies

Early life and artistic training[edit]

The Great Wave off Kanagawa, Hokusai's most famous print, the first in the series 36 Views of Mount
Fuji

Cranes from Quick Lessons in Simplified Drawing

Image of bathers from the Hokusai manga

Contemporary print of Hokusai painting the Great Daruma in 1817

Hokusai's date of birth is unclear, but is often stated as the 23rd day of the 9th month of the 10th year of
the Hreki era (in the old calendar, or October 30, 1760) to an artisan family, in the Katsushika district
of Edo, Japan.[6] His childhood name was Tokitar.[7] It is believed his father was the mirror-maker Nakajima
Ise, who produced mirrors for the shogun.[7] His father never made Hokusai an heir, so it is possible that his
mother was a concubine.[6] Hokusai began painting around the age of six, perhaps learning from his father,
whose work on mirrors included painting of designs around mirrors.[6]

Hokusai was known by at least thirty names during his lifetime. While the use of multiple names was a
common practice of Japanese artists of the time, his number of pseudonyms exceeds that of any other major
Japanese artist. Hokusai's name changes are so frequent, and so often related to changes in his artistic
production and style, that they are used for breaking his life up into periods.[6]

At the age of 12, his father sent him to work in a bookshop and lending library, a popular type of institution in
Japanese cities, where reading books made from wood-cut blocks was a popular entertainment of the
middle and upper classes.[8] At 14, he worked as an apprentice to a wood-carver, until the age of 18, when
he entered the studio of Katsukawa Shunsh. Shunsh was an artist of ukiyo-e, a style of wood block prints
and paintings that Hokusai would master, and head of the so-called Katsukawa school.[7] Ukiyo-e, as
practiced by artists like Shunsh, focused on images of the courtesans and Kabuki actors who were popular
in Japan's cities at the time.[9]

After a year, Hokusai's name changed for the first time, when he was dubbed Shunr by his master. It was
under this name that he published his first prints, a series of pictures of Kabuki actors published in 1779.
During the decade he worked in Shunsh's studio, Hokusai was married to his first wife, about whom very
little is known except that she died in the early 1790s. He married again in 1797, although this second wife
also died after a short time. He fathered two sons and three daughters with these two wives, and his
youngest daughter Sakae, also known as i, eventually became an artist.[9]

Upon the death of Shunsh 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.[9] He was soon
expelled from the Katsukawa school by Shunk, the chief disciple of Shunsh, possibly due to studies at the
rival Kan school. This event was, in his own words, inspirational: "What really motivated the development of
my artistic style was the embarrassment I suffered at Shunk's hands."[4]

Hokusai also changed the subjects of his works, moving away from the images of courtesans and actors that
were the traditional subjects of ukiyo-e. Instead, his work became focused on landscapes and images of the
daily life of Japanese people from a variety of social levels. This change of subject was a breakthrough in
ukiyo-e and in Hokusai's career.[9] Fireworks at Rygoku Bridge (1790) dates from this period of Hokusai's
life.[10]

Height of career[edit]
The next period saw Hokusai's association with the Tawaraya School and the adoption of the name
"Tawaraya Sri". He produced many brush paintings, called surimono, and illustrations for kyka
ehon (illustrated book of humorous poems) during this time. In 1798, Hokusai passed his name on to a pupil
and set out as an independent artist, free from ties to a school for the first time, adopting the name Hokusai
Tomisa.

By 1800, Hokusai was further developing his use of ukiyo-e for purposes other than portraiture. He had also
adopted the name he would most widely be known by, Katsushika Hokusai, 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 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.[9]

He became increasingly famous over the next decade, 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 p