Hokusai
(1760-1849)
Contents
The Highlights
Segawa Kikunojo III as Oren
Ichikawa Ebizo as Sanzoku
Descending Geese for Bunshichi
One Hundred Ghost Stories in a Haunted House
The Toilet
Sudden Rain at the New Yanagi Bridge, the Rainbow at Otakegura
Sonobe Saemon Yoritane
Hokusai Manga
Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife
A Fisherman’s Family
Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji
The Great Wave off Kanagawa
Fine Wind, Clear Morning
Clear Autumn Weather at Choko
The Amida Falls in the Far Reaches of the Kisokaido
Whaling off the Goto Islands
The Suspension Bridge on the Border of Hida and Etchu Provinces
The Ghost of Kohada Koheiji
Fuji over the Sea
Li Bai Admiring a Waterfall
The Prints
Hokusai’s Prints
Alphabetical List of Prints
The Biography
Hokusai by C. J. Holmes
The Delphi Classics Catalogue
© Delphi Classics 2019
Version 1
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Masters of Art Series
Katsushika Hokusai
By Delphi Classics, 2019
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Masters of Art - Katsushika Hokusai
First published in the United Kingdom in 2019 by Delphi Classics.
© Delphi Classics, 2019.
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ISBN: 978 1 78877 987 6
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The Highlights
Edo, modern day Tokyo — Hokusai’s birthplace
Map of Edo, c. 1840
Nihonbashi in Edo, ukiyo-e print by Hiroshige, c. 1840
A coloured Photochrom of a panorama of Edo, showing daimyo residences, Japan, c. 1866
The Highlights
In this section, a sample of Hokusai’s most celebrated designs is provided, with concise introductions, special ‘detail’ reproductions and additional biographical images.
Segawa Kikunojo III as Oren
The artist now known as Hokusai, the Japanese master artist and printmaker of the ukiyo-e school, is believed to have been born on 31 October 1760 in the Katsushika district of Edo, which today comprises the Tokyo Metropolis. His childhood name was Tokitaro and he was born into an artisan family; his father was Nakajima Ise, a mirror-maker, who produced mirrors for the shogun (the position of Japan’s military dictator, spanning from 1185 to 1868). As his father never made Hokusai an heir, some historians argue that his mother was a concubine. From a very young age Hokusai liked to draw and paint, most likely instructed by his father, whose work included the painting of designs around mirrors.
During his prolific career, Hokusai would adopt the use of at least thirty different names, subsequently thwarting future art historians with the precise dating of works; therefore, many of his prints remain undated. The various different names used by Hokusai at different times in his life have at least provided a reasonable understanding of the artist’s development in his work. Although the multiple use of pseudonyms was a common practice of Japanese artists of the time, his number far exceeds that of any other major Japanese artist. His names are so numerous, in keeping with his constant changes of style, that they are now largely used by critics to divide his work into certain periods.
From the age of twelve, Hokusai was sent to work in a bookshop and lending library — a popular institution in Japanese cities, where reading books made from woodcut blocks was a popular entertainment of the middle and upper classes. At the age of fourteen, he was apprenticed to a wood-carver and began the slow and patient process of mastering this medium. His first task would have been to produce a key block for an artist’s design, comprising the outlines to be printed in black. The wood carver was expected to paste a copy of the design face on to cherry wood blocks, carving through the paper itself. He would then add ‘L’ shaped registration marks to the corners of the block, enabling the sheets of paper to be positioned precisely for the printing. Next a set of monochrome impressions could be printed from the key block, which in turn were used to form the colour blocks. No doubt this challenging and lengthy procedure would endow Hokusai with an enduring appreciation of skilled block carvers – invaluable associates for the ambitious young artist.
When he turned eighteen, Hokusai entered the studio of Katsukawa Shunsho (1726-1793), a Japanese painter and printmaker of the ukiyo-e style, and the leading artist of the Katsukawa school. Shunsho studied under Miyagawa Shunsui, son and student of Miyagawa Choshun, both equally famous and talented ukiyo-e artists. Shunsho is famous today for introducing a new form of yakusha-e, prints depicting Kabuki actors. Ukiyo-e (‘pictures of the Floating World’) were woodblock prints and paintings of female beauties, kabuki actors and sumo wrestlers; these prints also included scenes from history and folk tales, travel landscapes, flora and fauna and erotica. In time, Hokusai would learn to master this style under the tutelage of his master Shunsho, eventually contributing notable works in all of these genres.
After a year of working in Shunsho’s studio, Hokusai’s name changed for the first time, when his master officially called him Shunro. It was under this new name that he published his first set of prints, a series of pictures of Kabuki actors that was published in 1779. Kabuki is a traditional Japanese popular drama, embellished with singing and dancing, and is notable for its highly stylised manner. The art form offers a rich blend of music, dance, mime, spectacular staging and costuming, and it has retained its popularity for almost four centuries. These highly lyrical plays are regarded, with notable exceptions, less as literature than as vehicles for actors to showcase their vast range of skills in visual and vocal performance. Kabuki actors have carried the traditions of Kabuki from one generation to the next, with only slight alterations. Many of them trace their ancestry and performing styles to the earliest Kabuki actors and add a “generation number” after their names to indicate their place in the long line of actors. Kabuki, like other traditional forms of drama in Japan is still performed today in full-day programs. Unlike the relatively short attendance of modern Western-style theatres, kabuki plays allow audiences to escape from the day-to-day world, devoting a full day to the resplendent entertainment. Though some individual plays, particularly the historical jidaimono, might last an entire day, most were shorter and sequenced with other plays in order to produce a full-day program.
During his early days, Hokusai produced 82 designs of kabuki actors, all structured in the narrow hosoban format — a rare print size, approximately 13” x 6”, commonly used in prints of the eig
hteenth century. These kabuki designs would comprise the majority of Hokusai’s output while employed in Shunsho’s studio.
Completed in 1779, Segawa Kikunojo III as Oren is one of the artist’s first four designs completed for his master. The subject for the print is taken from the play New Tale of Usuyuki, featuring the celebrated female-role Oren, a virtuous heroine. Hokusai portrays the actress Kikunojo standing before a screen, adopting a typical kabuki stylised pose. The depiction of the actress follows the formula developed by the artist’s master for kabuki prints — a single figure is represented in full length, appearing to turn or lean to a side, giving the impression of movement to an otherwise stilted scene. Hokusai projects a sense of depth with the use of a three dimensional stage like floor for the actress to stand upon. The right angled corner of this stage disappears to the left of the print, giving the impression of spontaneity to the narrow image. The inclusion of two partition walls behind the actress further enhance the sense of depth, projecting her figure closer to the viewer. Her elegant and beautiful dress pools on to the walkway, emphasising the sensuous shape of her slender form. Interestingly, the screen which is depicted to the right of the figure displays a motif of waves crashing against rocks, thus foreshadowing in Hokusai’s earliest days the iconic image that would forever establish his fame across the world.
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A Kabuki actor by Katsukawa Shunsho, Hokusai’s first master
The July 1858 production of ‘Shibaraku’ (one of the celebrated ‘Eighteen Great Plays’ at the Ichimura-za theatre in Edo. A triptych woodblock print by Utagawa Toyokuni III.
Ichikawa Ebizo as Sanzoku
During his early days in Shunsho’s studio, Hokusai faced great difficulties on several occasions. One legend, passed down by Hokusai’s first biographer Iijima Kyoshin (1841-1901), recalls how the young artist was forbidden the use of the Katsukawa name when Shunsho learned he had been receiving lessons from a Kano school painter. Therefore, Hokusai had to call himself Kusamura Shunro for a time. Yet another legend tells how he fell out with Shunko (1743-1812), Shunsho’s favoured senior student. The story runs that Hokusai had undertaken a commission to produce a shop sign for a small business that traded in books and printed matter in Ryogoku, a district 5 miles from Edo. Once the project was completed, the shop manager was so delighted with Hokusai’s work, that he displayed the sign at the entrance to his premises. Yet, when Shunko discovered the commission, he pronounced the work a disgrace to the Katsukawa name and subsequently destroyed the sign. In later years, Hokusai would credit the affair as a source of inspiration, encouraging him to win the name of a great artist.
Nevertheless, this would not prove to be as simple as he had first expected. Positioned as an artist in the lower sphere of the studio, who was failing to win the good graces of Shunsho, Hokusai received the commissions for design prints of the middle market. Rarely was he trusted with designing woodcuts for important kabuki productions, which were instead reserved for artists of greater experience. Therefore, the majority of his early prints were for off-season performances, printed on cheap paper, while using inferior pigments, with little expectation for their execution.
Yet, through his determination and slowly-increasing reputation, Hokusai was able to win more prestigious commissions, including a diptych that commemorated the production of a play titled The Golden Hilt Ornament and Square Swordguard of the Minamoto Family. First performed at the Ichimura theatre in 1791, this play marked the debut of a future star of Kabuki theatre: Ichikawa Ebizo (1741-1806). The two panels of the diptych represent Ebizo as the character Sanzoku on the left and Sakata Hangoro III as a travelling priest on the right. Hokusai’s book Self-Taught Dancing Apprenticeship, published many years later in 1815, provides an insight into the artist’s fascination with depicting movement, fostered by his interest in the theatre and his playful sense of humour. In spite of the narrow conventions of the hosoban format, Hokusai liked to emulate the energy and spectacle of kabuki stage dances in his prints. We can see this interest in movement in the figure of Sanzoku, a villainous bandit in the drama. The colour woodblock print presents the outlaw as an imposing and towering figure. He rests his left foot on a large rock and appears to lean forward, while his left hand swings back in the other direction, firmly grasping his bamboo staff in a powerful pose. This contrast of directions gives the print a sense of dynamism rarely found in other Kabuki prints of the time. The bandit’s face peers nonchalantly forward, undeterred in his steady and frightening gaze.
The accompanying panel is regarded by some experts as one of Hokusai’s most accomplished kabuki prints. It depicts the actor Sakata Hangoro III, widely regarded for his powerful stage presence in the roles of villains and heroes. The figure is represented standing in a graveyard scene, casting away his disguise of a travelling priest to reveal his identity as Chinzei Hachiro Tametomo, a surviving samurai of the Minamoto clan. Clutching the skull of a fallen lord to his heart, Tametomo strikes a fierce stage pose, his elongated eyebrows and red-tinged eyes heightening to his foreboding presence.
Left print: Ichikawa Ebizo as Sanzoku
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Right print: ‘Sakata Hangoro III as a Travelling Priest’
Ichimura theatre by Hiroshige, 1854
Descending Geese for Bunshichi
While still working in Shunsho’s studio, much of Hokusai’s work revealed the influence of Torii Kiyonaga (1752-1815). The principal figures of his prints are depicted with oval faces and small narrow foreheads, while their bodies are represented as statuesque forms, wrapped in heavily layered robes, giving an impression of monumentality to the scenes. Between 1781 and 1789, Hokusai worked on an elegant series of prints, entitled Eight Views of Elegant Gallants, parodying the classical Chinese theme of the Eight Views of the Xiaoxiang Rivers. These beautiful scenes of the Xiaoxiang region, now in the modern Hunan Province of China, were the subject of the poems, drawings and paintings from the time of the Song Dynasty. Hokusai chose to exploit this well-known example of austere classicism for his own comedic style, signalling his own mischievous character.
Only five designs have survived from Eight Views of Elegant Gallants and each print juxtaposes humorous or out-of-place figures in the setting of one of the original eight Chinese views. One of the most popular prints from this series, Descending Geese for Bunshichi, now held in the Art Institute of Chicago, alludes to The Wild Geese Coming Home in Yongzhou, depicting the outlaw Karigane Bunshichi, a Robin Hood-like hero from Edo popular culture. This figure was likely chosen as the first character of the name Karigane translates as ‘goose’. According to legend, Bunshichi led a gang of outlaws in Osaka during the Genroku era in the late seventeenth century. In time, he was caught and executed by the authorities, yet his colourful character lived on in the people’s imagination, immortalised in several popular kabuki plays.
Hokusai portrays Bunshichi in a quiet, intimate scene, accompanied by a lover that fastidiously binds his hair with a white cord. The vanity of the hero is hinted at as he carefully studies her actions in a small mirror. In the upper left corner of the woodblock print, a flock of geese can be seen through the window, flying in formation, adding depth to the scene, while referencing the artist’s cheeky homage to the famous Chinese painting. The pastel pinks, yellows and greens of the palette reinforce the ambience of a light-hearted parody.
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Part of the imaginary tour through Xiaoxiang by Li Shi from the twelfth century. Scroll, 30.3 cm x 400.4 cm. Ink on paper. Located at the Tokyo National Museum.
One Hundred Ghost Stories in a Haunted House
In his latter days as a student employed in a workshop, Hokusai favoured the style of ukiyo-e or “floating pictures”. This new approach f
avoured a Western linear perspective, allowing the artist to depict in greater detail views of landscape and architecture. From the early seventeenth century, the merchant class at the bottom of the social order benefited most from the city’s rapid economic growth. Many indulged in the entertainments of kabuki theatre, courtesans and the geisha of the pleasure districts. The term ukiyo came to epitomise this hedonistic lifestyle. Printed or painted ukiyo-e images of this environment were popular with the merchant class, who had become wealthy enough to afford to decorate their homes with mass produced prints.
In time, Hokusai made a brave, and ultimately rewarding, transition in style, venturing outside the standard practice of the Katsukawa studio, turning instead to the Utagawa School. Utagawa Toyoharu (1735-1814) was the grand champion of ukiyo-e prints in the 1770’s and 1780’s and his designs were largely inspired by Dutch engravings, sourced from China. In the late 1780’s, Toyoharu’s production of ukiyo-e decreased, leaving a gap in the market, which Hokusai was quick to exploit; he was soon receiving commissions for this innovative approach to woodblock prints. They were admired for their enhanced possibilities of representing local scenery, as well as for depicting kabuki theatre productions in a more engaging and expansive format.
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