Katsushika Hokusai, Who Drew 30,000 Works in a 70-Year Career — The Art That Awed Even Monet and Van Gogh

Introduction

The art I, a lover of museum-going, would most like to recommend is the Japanese painting of Katsushika Hokusai. I first encountered Hokusai's pictures as a child, at a museum I visited with my family, and I remember the powerful impact they made. Young as I was — not even knowing that Hokusai was a great painter — there was something in his art that drew me in strongly.

Later I learned about Hokusai and enjoyed many other works of art besides his, but the fact that I love his pictures above all has never changed. Hokusai took the world by storm as an ukiyo-e artist in the Edo period, and just as the world praises him to this day, I too must be one of those captivated by his art.

Hokusai's work is so strongly associated with "Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji" that his many other masterpieces are little known. He left behind more than 30,000 works, changed his artist's pen name (his "gagō") more than 30 times, and lived — by the traditional count — to the astonishing age of 90.

Let me introduce the art of Hokusai, this giant of ukiyo-e — his representative works, of course, but also unraveled from the story of his life.

Devoted to Painting: The Life of Hokusai

Before Hokusai Set His Sights on Becoming a Painter

In 1760, in the Edo period, Hokusai was born in what is now Sumida Ward, Tokyo. At the time, ukiyo-e was flourishing in the arts, and when Hokusai was about six, "nishiki-e" — multicolor woodblock prints — appeared. From early childhood Hokusai took an interest in pictures and is said to have sketched one thing after another that caught his eye.

After being raised as the adopted son of an uncle who was an "official mirror maker," Hokusai worked at a book-lending shop and also did the work of "woodblock carving" for ukiyo-e, but he held a great dream: "I want to become a painter."

At Last, He Enters the Path of the Painter

At nineteen, Hokusai became a pupil of "Katsukawa Shunshō," a popular ukiyo-e artist of the day. Having mastered painting on his own, Hokusai was soon recognized by his teacher as a full-fledged artist. The following year, at twenty, he released his debut work — a "small-format actor print" — under the artist's name "Katsukawa Shunrō."

Then, while continuing his training, he put out many actor prints and book illustrations, raising his profile. His interest in pictures was bottomless, and he eagerly studied even the techniques of schools other than the Katsukawa, and of foreign painting. Hokusai had a desire to explore all kinds of pictures and grow still more.

Before long his teacher died, and around the age of 34, owing to conflict with senior disciples and the like, Hokusai left the Katsukawa school and entered the "Sōri school." The Sōri school was a lineage founded by Tawaraya Sōtatsu and others in the Azuchi-Momoyama period, and Hokusai soon succeeded to the position of its head. He went on to master new fields different from the Katsukawa school, such as "hand-painted works" (nikuhitsuga) and illustrations for "kyōka picture books."

Independent as an Artist, Mastering His Own Way

At 39, Hokusai handed over the headship of his household and became independent under the artist's name "Hokusai Tatsumasa." After that he resumed nishiki-e and, belonging to no school, mastered painting in his own way. Book illustration became the center of his work, and he sometimes illustrated books written by Kyokutei (Takizawa) Bakin. He also poured energy into hand-painted works.

There is an anecdote that, in the grounds of Gokoku-ji temple (Bunkyō Ward, Tokyo), he painted a gigantic image of Daruma the size of 120 tatami mats. Around this time, Hokusai changed his artist's name to "Katsushika Hokusai."

The Later Years That Produced Masterpieces Still With Us Today

When Hokusai was in his fifties, many people wished to become his pupils. So, to teach his pupils how to draw, he decided to make "drawing manuals" as woodblock prints, which could be printed in large quantities. The manuals spread not only among his pupils but also among enthusiasts. That very drawing manual is the famous "Hokusai Manga."

At about 68, Hokusai suffered a stroke, but because he was well versed in Chinese herbal medicine, he recovered — astonishingly — with a herbal remedy he compounded with his own hands. And from around the age of 71, he produced the now universally known "Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji." This became the origin of the "landscape print" that appeared in the world of ukiyo-e.

The Final Days of a Master Who Kept Drawing

Even as the years piled up, neither Hokusai's will to paint nor his powers of expression declined. Around the age of 80, he devoted himself to hand-painted works, coming to depict religious subjects and nature. His style changed too, and there are many masterpieces that blend various techniques. In 1849, Hokusai went on pursuing his art until he left this world at the age of 90.

Hokusai's Art: He Drew Everything

A. The Famous Landscape Nishiki-e: "Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji"

Although the title says thirty-six views, owing to its popularity ten more were added (commonly called "Ura-Fuji," the back Fuji), completing the set at forty-six. It is characterized by bold compositions and beautiful color that skillfully employs the blue pigment imported from the West (Berlin blue).

a. The Most Famous: "Under the Wave off Kanagawa"

It depicts the contrast of "motion and stillness": the instant a huge wave breaks down as if to attack the boats, and Mount Fuji standing beautifully in the distance. Hokusai was deeply particular about depicting waves and reached a level no painter of his time had ever achieved.

Dynamic and vivid, it has a force as if the wave were actually moving. Don't you feel as though you can hear the sound of the wave? I am drawn into this picture and want to keep gazing at it forever.

b. The Popular "Fine Wind, Clear Morning," Known as "Red Fuji"

It captures the mysterious moment when Mount Fuji is dyed red in the morning glow. Behind the red mountainside, clouds spread across a blue sky, and the green foothills are a sea of trees. With just three colors it is very simple, yet the contrast and gradation are so beautiful that I, too, catch my breath.

c. "Ejiri in Suruga Province," So Real You Feel the Wind

A masterpiece depicting the instant a strong wind blows in Ejiri, which flourished as the 18th post station of the Tōkaidō road. Trees sway, papers dance in the wind, travelers wear bewildered expressions — every detail is precisely drawn. The shape of the wind is not drawn, yet the picture conveys that the wind is surely blowing.

B. Hokusai's Illustrated Guide to All Creation: "Hokusai Manga"

The "manga" in "Hokusai Manga" does not mean manga in today's sense; it means "a picture collection in which Hokusai drew any and every thing, freely and at random, as the mood took him." He drew everything — people, animals, plants, buildings, gods and Buddhas, customs, everyday objects — and the number of illustrations is said to exceed 3,900.

a. The Origin of Anime!? "The Sparrow Dance"

It depicts the "sparrow dance," a dance popular at the time, but it is rendered in such detail that it is like an illustrated guide to the choreography. Seen in sequence, the figures appear to move like a flip-book, which is why it is also called the origin of anime.

b. Hokusai the Designer!? "Imayō Sekkin Hinagata" and "Shingata Komon-chō"

"Imayō Sekkin Hinagata" contains designs for combs and for pipes, drawn at actual size. Craftsmen of the day would cut out a design they liked, paste it directly onto a comb or pipe component, and carve it.

"Shingata Komon-chō" contains, alongside classic patterns, Hokusai's own original designs, which dyers used as references. Hokusai's ideas — such as turning the grain of a tatami mat into a pattern — astonish with their sharp eye for detail.

C. "Hand-Painted Works" (Nikuhitsuga), Drawn with Hokusai's Precise Brush and Keen Eye

Nikuhitsuga are ukiyo-e drawn with a brush rather than printed. Among them, "Watermelon" and "Two Beauties" are overwhelming, and you can feel the brushwork that expresses Hokusai's greatness.

D. Hokusai's Intense, Original Inventiveness

Hokusai created original compositions while also incorporating Western techniques into his landscapes. His "A Tour of Waterfalls in Various Provinces" series takes waterfalls as its motif and conveys the movement of water through bold compositions. And with series such as "Remarkable Views of Bridges in Various Provinces," depicting bridges around the country, the masterpieces bearing Hokusai's distinctive worldview are too many to count.

Acclaimed by the World, Then and Now

In 1856, the French etcher Félix Bracquemond came across pages of the Hokusai Manga that had been used as wrapping paper for ceramics sent from Japan. Impressed by the splendid draftsmanship, he is said to have introduced the Hokusai Manga to many painters.

Also, at the 1867 Paris World's Fair, many ukiyo-e and craft objects were exhibited from Japan and caught the eyes of many European artists.

Just as Monet drew works such as "The Cliffs at Étretat" inspired by "Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji," Hokusai influenced renowned painters such as Manet, Degas, Van Gogh, and Gauguin.

Furthermore, Hokusai's influence did not stop at the visual arts: the composer Debussy wrote "La Mer," which he envisioned from Hokusai's "Under the Wave off Kanagawa."

However the times may change, the world acknowledges Hokusai's achievements: in 1998, the American magazine "LIFE" selected Hokusai as one of "the 100 people who left the most important achievements of the past 1,000 years." He was the only Japanese chosen, which shows just how great he was.

Hokusai: Captivating in Both Art and Life

Hokusai's art overwhelms you with its eye-catching color and unconventional compositions, astonishes you with the precision drawn into every detail, and captivates you with his distinctive worldview and sense of reality.

Across a wide range of genres — prints, hand-painted works, book illustrations — and on themes as varied as people, landscapes, plants, and animals, Hokusai explored not only Japanese painting of different schools but even the techniques of Western and Chinese painting. Beyond making all of it his own and fusing it together lay his originality.

The people who appear in Hokusai's intense art all wear gentle gazes and unique expressions, and they make you feel warm. Hokusai comes across as someone who loved people and had a pure heart.

It must have been precisely because of that purity, his outstanding talent, his strong passion for painting, and the robust health that let him live to 90, that Hokusai's one-of-a-kind art was born.

The art Hokusai drew over his 70-year career as a painter is held in museums all across Japan, and there are still many works I have not yet seen. Each single work has given me a different kind of wonder, so I look forward to the next new encounter. Why don't you, too, take a look at Hokusai's art?