Masters of Art - Katsushika Hokusai

by Katsushika Hokusai

  The third school, known first as Yamato and later as Tosa, did not come into prominence till after the great civil wars which devastated Japan in the twelfth century. The Japanese themselves regard it as a national product, and to a certain degree they are right. Tosa painting, however, is not an original discovery so much as a combination of several quite distinct elements; and, as the school laid the foundations of the section of Japanese art with which we are at present concerned, it deserves more than a passing notice. Though its origin is still uncertain, it would appear from similarities of method and composition that the school was in the beginning a secular offshoot of the hieratic Buddhist art, — a substitution of courtiers and heroes for hermits and celestial personages. On to this stem was grafted, when or how we do not know, the delicacy and prettiness of Persian miniature painting. The outlook of the school was further widened by an occasional fashion for imitating the methods of Chinese artists, and under this influence its best work was done. The Chinese tradition instils a fresh vigour and naturalism into a style of painting that was too often content with bright gaudy colour, absurd conventional clouds, and faces stippled into doll-like inanity. Thus it is that, coupled with scenes from history and court life, we find really beautiful paintings of birds and flowers. It was not till late in the sixteenth century that a Tosa painter, Matahei, broke through the traditions of aristocratic exclusiveness to paint the everyday life around him, and so found the school of “passing-world pictures” (Ukiyo-yé), which produced the great colour-printers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

  Wood-engraving had been practised in Japan from an early period, but had remained barbaric in comparison with Chinese work, until the demand for Ukiyo-yé prints came as a stimulus. The method of cutting was the same as that employed in Europe till the beginning of the present century. The design, transferred to thin tracing-paper, was pasted on to the face of the wood block, and the white spaces hollowed out with a knife and small gouges. The wood, usually that of the cherry-tree, was not hard, and was cut along the grain instead of across the end of it, as is the case with boxwood blocks. No press was used for printing, but the primitive substitute could turn out very perfect work in capable hands, and Japanese hands are usually capable. After the block had been inked, a sheet of damp paper was laid upon it, and the back of the paper was then rubbed with a flat rubber till the impression was uniformly transferred. Where more than one block was employed, as in colour-printing, the subsequent impressions were registered by marks made at the corners of the paper.

  Matahei’s designs were not apparently engraved, but he was followed by three designers of the highest merit, — Moronobu, Masanobu, and Sukenobu, — whose work gained an extensive popularity among the lower classes by skilful reproduction, though as yet the prints were restricted to black and white, colour being occasionally added by hand. Though the hand-colouring was often exceedingly skilful, it was discarded early in the eighteenth century, when the discovery of printing colours from a second block was made by Kiyonobu. His successors, Harunobu and Koriusai, increased the number of blocks to seven or eight, and produced colour effects that in boldness and subtlety were never surpassed by the later artists. Shunsho carried the pyramidal Tosa composition to perfection in his book of famous beauties; Kiyonaga introduced processional arrangements, and a realism of facial expression unknown till his time; Utamaro practically confined himself to the fair ladies of the Yoshiwara, whose robes and gestures were combined and recombined in a thousand elaborate harmonies; while Toyokuni gained an enormous vogue as the painter of the stage, whose melodrama lost nothing of its extravagance in his hands.

  A brief survey of the surroundings of Hokusai’s youth would show us the classical Kano and Tosa schools sinking in steady decline at the courts of Yedo and Kioto, while everywhere in the streets of the northern capital cheap coloured engravings of fashionable beauties and fashionable actors had as ready a sale as their modern photographic successors. The enthusiasm of the Japanese people for the loveliness of nature created a market for volumes of birds and flowers, as well as guide-books with views of show-places; their popular novels were crammed with illustrations of the astonishing adventures upon which the characters chanced; fêtes and occasions of ceremony were commemorated by elaborate picture-cards; even the splendid painted kakemono of the wealthy had their counterparts in the long colour-prints that hung in the houses of the poor. Thus, while the nobles hoarded their collections of classical paintings, and patronised its effete living followers, the vast majority of the people, the merchants and artisans, had a flourishing art that, in spite of the contempt with which it was regarded by the courtier-connoisseurs of the day, had accumulated a tradition of its own, and in its most exquisite manifestations had already shown a ripeness that was perilously near to decay. The truth is that the Ukiyo-yé art was itself based on an old convention, from which during the eighteenth century it was never wholly able to get free. The genius of Harunobu and Outamaro, though it found new beauties in that convention, only succeeded in the end in making its limitations more apparent than ever; nor could the ruder force of Kiyonaga or Toyokuni lend any permanent help. In fact, by the end of the eighteenth century the perfection of colour and design that had characterised popular painting was already become a thing of the past. Japanese art could only be saved by an absolute revolution, and it is not the least of Hokusai’s merits that he had the strength of mind to defy long-continued prejudice and poverty for the sake of nature and life.

  HOKUSAI’S LIFE

  IN the autumn of 1760, when Hogarth had just had his Sigismunda thrown on his hands by Sir Richard Grosvenor, a child was born in a humble suburb of Yedo whose place in the world’s art was destined to be at least no less important than that of the English painter of life and character. His parents were of the artisan class; the father a maker of metal mirrors to the court of the Shogun, the mother a member of a family that was not without celebrity in its time, but had lighted upon evil days. Her grandfather had been a retainer of the courtier Kira, in whose defence he had fallen by the hand of one of the forty-seven Ronins during the midnight attack which was the climax of that tragic episode of seventeenth-century Japan. The vassal’s family had been involved in the ruin that overtook the house of his master, so that in the next century it was not strange that his granddaughter should have married a workman. Perhaps to this soldier ancestor we may trace the pride and independence that characterised Hokusai all his life, just as the employment of his father — for Japanese mirrors are decorated on the back as well as polished on the face — might be supposed to influence the ‘ child’s tastes and capacity in the direction of art.

  Possibly because he was not an only son, he left home when thirteen or fourteen to be apprenticed to an engraver. Though he did not remain at this trade for more than four years, the experience thus gained must have been exceedingly useful to him in after life, when he had to direct the men who were cutting his own work. Some letters on this point to his publishers are not without interest. In one, dated 1836, we read: “I warn the engraver not to add an eyeball underneath when I don’t draw one. As to the noses; these two noses are mine (here he draws a nose in front and in profile). Those they generally engrave are the noses of Utagawa (Toyokuni), which I do not like at all.” Several prints actually engraved by Hokusai are still preserved. At the age of eighteen he left this employment to join the school of the great designer, Shunsho, whose colour - prints are among the treasures of modern collectors, where he became an apt imitator of his master’s style. His originality, however, could not long be suppressed. An enthusiasm for the vigorous black and white work of the Kano school irritated the old professor, whose dainty art aimed at very different ideals. At last, in 1786, a quarrel over the painting of a shop sign resulted in the expulsion of the disobedient pupil. No doubt such an inquisitive, unconventional scholar must have sadly perplexed a master who had long been regarded, and quite rightly, as one of the leaders of the popular school. Yet in tho
se eight years spent under Shunsho’s guidance the younger man must have learned all that was to be learned from Ukiyo-yé art, and no further advance was possible for him until he had gained his freedom.

  Thus, at the age of twenty-six, Hokusai was cast adrift upon the world to try to make a living by illustrating comic books, and even writing them. He was attracted for a time by Tosa painting, and worked in imitation of it; but, work as he might, he was unable to make a livelihood. At last in despair he gave up art and turned hawker, selling at first red pepper and then almanacs. One day as he was crying these latter in the street his former master, Shunsho, happened to come along. The pride of Hokusai would not allow him to stoop to begging, so he plunged into the crowd to avoid recognition. After some months of misery an unexpected and well-paid commission to paint a flag-aroused hope in him once more. Working early and late he succeeded in executing illustrations to a number of novels, and designed many surimono — the dainty cards used for festive occasions — with gradually increasing reputation. It was about this time that he learned, or rather came in contact with, the rules of perspective, and began to catch something of the grandeur of the early art of China.

  In the spring of 1804 he made a popular hit by painting a colossal figure in the court of one of the Yedo temples. On a sheet of paper more than eighteen yards long and eleven yards wide, with brooms, tubs of water, and tubs of ink, he worked in the presence of a wondering crowd, sweeping the pigment this way and that. Only by scaling the temple roof could the people view the bust of a famous saint in its entirety. “The arch of the mouth was like a gate through which a horse could have passed; a man could have sat down in one of the eyes.” Hokusai followed up this triumph by painting, on a colossal scale, a horse, the fat god Hotei, and the seven gods of good luck. At the same time, to show the range of his powers, he made microscopic drawings on grains of wheat or rice, and sketched upside down, with an egg, a bottle, or a wine measure. These tricks gained him such a reputation that he was commanded to draw before the Shogun, an honour almost without precedent for a painter of the artisan class. Here he created a sensation by painting the feet of a cock and letting it walk about in the wet colour spread on his paper, till the result was a blue river covered with the floating leaves of the red maple.

  In 1807 his connection and squabbles with Bakin, the famous novelist, began. They first collaborated on a book, The Hundred and Eight Heroes, which Bakin translated from the Chinese, while Hokusai furnished the pictures. The connection lasted about four years, and was dissolved by an unusually violent quarrel. The pair seem indeed to have been ill-matched. Bakin, serious, distant, absorbed in his literary studies, possibly a bit of a pedant, was no companion for the quick capricious artist. Hokusai’s first acquaintance with the actor Baiko was equally characteristic. Baiko, who was especially famous for his manner of playing ghosts, one day sent to ask Hokusai to draw him a new kind of phantom. No reply came, so Baiko called in person. He found the painter in a room so filthy that he had to spread out a rug he had prudently brought with him before he could sit down. To his attempts at polite conversation, and his remarks about the weather, Hokusai made no answer, but remained seated without even turning his head, till at last Baiko had to retire angry and unsuccessful. In a few days he returned with humble apologies, was well received, and from that time forward the two were friends.

  In 1817 Hokusai went to Nagoya for six months, staying in the house of a pupil. Here he repeated the tour-de-force that had gained him so great a reputation at Yedo, by painting a colossal figure, in the presence of a crowd of spectators, on a sheet of paper so large that the design could only be shown by hoisting it on to a scaffolding with ropes. More important, however, than this advertisement of his dexterity, was the publication of the first volume of the Mangwa, which, according to the latest authority, appeared at this time. The word has been variously translated by such expressions as “various sketches,” “spontaneous sketches,” “rough sketches,” “casual sketches,” and so on. The exact meaning is ambiguous even for cultured Japanese, so that it is unnecessary to discuss the matter further here. This volume was the first of the famous series of fifteen which contains so much of the artist’s best work.

  In 1818 he continued his travels, visiting Osaka and Kioto before returning to Yedo. It would seem that in the ancient capital of the Mikado, Hokusai met with but moderate success. The place was the headquarters of the classical schools of painting, and its refined connoisseurs would recognise but little merit even in the best productions of the popular art. Ten years later, when nearly seventy years old, he was attacked by paralysis, but cured himself with a Chinese recipe that he found in an old book. This recipe for boiling lemons in saké (rice-spirit) is still extant, with drawings by Hokusai of the lemon, the manner of cutting it, and the earthen pipkin in which the mixture is to be cooked. Whatever the merits of the medicine, the old artist was thoroughly cured, for it was about this time that he produced the three sets of large colour-prints which are, perhaps, his most important works, the Waterfalls, the Bridges, and the Thirty-six Views of Fuji. It is possibly owing to the misfortunes of the following years that these series seem to be incomplete. Certainly Hokusai had good reasons for not undertaking any commissions that did not bring in ready money, for in the winter of 1834 he had to fly from Yedo and live in hiding; at Uraga under an assumed name. The reason of this flight is uncertain, except that it was caused by the misdoings of a grandson. A letter to his publishers explains the measures taken for the reformation of the scapegrace; the purchase of a fish shop, and the provision of a wife “who will arrive in a few days” — at Hokusai’s expense.

  When -writing from Uraga he would not give his address, though he suffered great privations; and when important business recalled him to Yedo, he visited the capital secretly.

  It was not till 1836 that he was free to return safely; but the return came at an unpropitious time. The country was devastated by a terrible famine, and Hokusai found that the ordinary demand for art had ceased. To live he was compelled to work day and night, turning out quantities of drawings whose chief recommendation to the public was their cheapness. At last he was reduced to such straits that he had to eke out a precarious existence on handfuls of rice, gained by exhibitions of his manual dexterity. In the following year his patience was again severely tried by a fire that burned his house and all his drawings. Only his brushes were saved; and the poor old man had to keep more constantly than ever to his work, both as a consolation in his troubles and as means of avoiding starvation. Year after year he went on designing with undiminished power and activity; but though he never emerged from the state of chronic poverty that had surrounded him all his life, he never seems to have been again threatened by positive want. Certainly in old age he lost nothing of his skill and little of his cheerfulness, if we may judge from a letter written to a friend during his fatal illness in 1849.

  “King Yemma (the Japanese Pluto) being very old is retiring from business, so he has built a pretty country house, and asks me to go and paint a kakemono for him. I am thus obliged to leave, and, when I leave, shall carry my drawings with me. I am going to take a room at the corner of Hell St, and shall be happy to see you whenever you pass that way. — HOKUSAI.”

  On his deathbed he murmured, “If Heaven could only grant me ten more years!” Then a moment after, when he realised that the end had come, “If Heaven had only granted me five more years I could have become a real painter.” With this rather unreasonable regret on his lips Hokusai died on 10th May 1849, in his ninetieth year. His humble tombstone, black and neglected, may still be seen among the pines and cherry-trees of a monastery garden in the Asakusa suburb. In front it bears the inscription: “Tomb of Gwakio Rojin Manji” (the old man mad about drawing); on one side a list of family names, on the other a poem which the artist, in accordance with national custom, composed during his last hours: “My soul, turned will-o’-the-wisp, can come and go at ease over the summer fields.”

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sp; Hokusai was twice married, and had five children, two sons and three daughters. The eldest son was a scamp, who inherited the mirror-making business, and was a cause of endless trouble to his father. The younger became a petty official with a taste for poetry. His eldest daughter married her father’s pupil Shigenobu, and, before she was divorced from her husband, became the mother of the child whose excesses made it necessary for Hokusai to go into hiding at Uraga. Another daughter died in youth. The youngest, Oyei, married a painter; but her independent spirit led to a speedy divorce, and she returned home to be for many years the devoted companion of her father, whom she did not long survive.

  Theirs must have been a curious household, judging from the contemporary accounts that have come down to us. In the middle of the studio floor stood a square brazier containing a few lumps of charcoal. Hokusai, with an old counterpane thrown over his shoulders, sat leaning over his work-table with his back to this poor fire. All around was litter and dirt. The daughter, a skilful artist, with a reputation for fortune-telling, sat working near her father, receiving strangers as best she could in the absence of all the customary means of showing politeness, and fetching food, as required, from a neighbouring shop. Her portrait of Hokusai when about eighty years old forms the frontispiece of De Goncourt’s book. When the house got quite unbearably filthy, the pair did not clean it, but hired another. Hokusai thus changed his abode no less than ninety-three times in the course of his life.