Background

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 Hōreki era (in the old calendar, or October 21, 1760) to an artisan family, in the Katsushika district of Edo, Japan (present-day Tokyo).

His father was a mirror maker Nikajima Ise. Hokusai was born in the family of artists and his childhood name was Tokitarō. He was never made the heir of his father's property and due to this, it is also stated that Hokusai's mother could have been a concubine to his father.

Education

Hokusai started to showcase his talent in the field of art at the age of six. It is believed that he learned this talent from his father who also used to design and paint the frames of the mirrors.

At first apprenticed to a wood engraver, he later entered the studio of Shunsho, a painter of the Ukiyo-e School, which in the 17th century had broken with tradition and gone to seek subject matter in scenes from contemporary life.

At his teacher's death in 1792, he left his studio and studied the styles of the main schools of Japanese painting, such as Kano, Tosa, and Sotatsu-Korin, as well as Dutch engravings and Chinese painting.

Career

During those days in Japan, there came trend of reading from the wooden blocks. This could only be afforded to the upper-class families. Hokusai was 12 years of age when his father sent him to work in a bookshop and a library.

In 1775, Hokusai was given a new name by his master as Shunro. He got his first publication of ukiyo-e under this name. This prints included Kabuki actors and the work came out in the year 1779.

It was in the year 1798 when Hokusai declared himself as an independent artist and took up the name Hokusai Tomisa. In two years, Hokusai developed the art of ukiyo-e and became popular by the name . The same year, Hokusai also published Eight Views of Edo and Famous Sights of the Eastern Capital. Both were landscapes. He also had several students under him during the time and it is stated that he took in around 50 art students as his pupil during his life span.

Hokusai's mature work shows a marked inventiveness which is uniquely his own and reveals him as a true master. He varied his artistic personality frequently and used no less than 31 different names. His subjects included every genre from Kabuki actors and courtesans to landscapes and scenes from daily life.

Hokusai's style varied greatly from period to period and even from work to work. Not only did his painting differ from his sketches and wood blocks in being on the whole less inspired and more meticulous, but his prints also show a tremendous change in style. The most extreme contrast is that between his early, very conventional work produced while he was working in Shunsho's studio and his bold experiments with Western shading and perspective in a set of prints of 1798 which show the influence of Dutch engravings and the work of Shiba Kokan. Other works, notably his bird and flower paintings, reflect the influence of the Chinese bird and flower paintings of the Ming and Ch'ing periods.

Hokusai created a 600 feet giant poster of Buddhist priest Daruma with a broom and a bucket of ink during the Tokyo festival in the year 1804. He also participated in the competition with another artist in the court of Shogun Iyenari. With his work and self marketing skills, he became highly popular during the decade.

In the year 1807, Hokusai collaborated with novelist Takizawa Bakin for several illustrations of his books. They separated during the work on their fourth book due to differences and the publishers chose Hokusai over the writer and stated that illustrations played an important role in book printings.

At the age of 51, in the year 1811, Hokusai once again altered his name to Taito and introduced himself to creating art manuals and various etehon. A year later he published ‘Quick Lessons in Simplified Drawing' to earn money and get more students. The first art book from Hokusai, popularly known as manga, as the modern comic book was published in the year 1814. There were 12 volumes of the series published by the year 1820.

The climax of Hokusai's career was no doubt achieved with his celebrated set of the Thirty-six Views of Mt. Fuji, which he produced some time between 1823 and 1831. The most famous among the compositions are Fuji on a Clear Day and the Great Wave at Kanagawa, the former showing the red cone of Mt. Fuji, the sacred mountain of Japan, silhouetted against the white clouds and blue sky, and the latter, with Fuji in the distance, depicting a huge wave threatening to engulf fishermen in their open boats. Exhibiting a beautiful sense of pattern, first-rate drawing, and sensitive use of colors, these prints combine artistic excellence with interesting and typically Japanese subject matter.

Bad fortune struck in the year 1839 when a fatal fire caught Hokusai's studio and a major part of his work was destroyed. During the same time, he was also getting overpowered by several new emerging artists. Hokusai kept on painting and he was at the age of 87 when he completed with ‘Ducks in a Stream'. On his death bed, Hokusai was still expecting to improve his artistic skills and mentioned that if god could grant him few more years, he could be a good artist. Hokusai succumbed to death on 18th of April, 1849 and his burial was performed at Seikyō-ji in Tokyo.

Achievements

• Hokusai is best known as author of the woodblock print series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji which includes the internationally iconic print, The Great Wave off Kanagawa, Fine Wind, Clear Morning, that secured Hokusai’s fame both in Japan and overseas. He developed the trend of focusing on the characters to a broader vision of landscapes, flora, and fauna. His influences stretched to his western contemporaries in nineteenth century Europe whose new style Art Nouveau, or Jugendstil in Germany, was influenced by him and by Japanese art in general.
  
  All in all, it is estimated that Hokusai produced some 35, 000 paintings, wash drawings, wood-block prints, and illustrated books during his long and immensely productive lifetime.

Works

Works Gallery

• book

  • Hokusai Manga (Japanese and Japanese Edition)

    (The legendary masterpieces of Hokusai-fifteen volumes in ...)

    1811

Religion

Hokusai was a member of the Nichiren sect of Buddhism, who see the North Star as associated with the deity Myōken.

Views

Quotations: "Although from about 50 I have often published my pictorial works, before the seventieth year none is of much value.

At the age of 73 I was able to fathom slightly the structure of birds, animals, insects, and fish, the growth of grass and trees.

At 110 every dot and every stroke may be as if living.

I hope all good men of great age will feel that what I have said is not absurd. "

In the postscript to this work, Hokusai writes:

"From the age of six, I had a passion for copying the form of things and since the age of fifty I have published many drawings, yet of all I drew by my seventieth year there is nothing worth taking in to account.

At seventy-three years I partly understood the structure of animals, birds, insects and fishes, and the life of grasses and plants. And so, at eighty-six I shall progress further; at ninety I shall even further penetrate their secret meaning, and by one hundred I shall perhaps truly have reached the level of the marvellous and divine. When I am one hundred and ten, each dot, each line will possess a life of its own."

Personality

Hokusai was a highly talented and a smart person right from an early age. He kept on exploring the various forms of art and not just he learned them but also developed them in his own format. He was always on the lookout of improving himself and marketing himself constantly to gain attention.

Quotes from others about the person

• “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".”

Interests

• Artists

  Hokusai was influenced by Sesshū Tōyō and other styles of Chinese painting.

Connections

Hokusai was married twice. His first wife 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 Ei, also known as Ōi, eventually became an artist.

daughter:

Ei Hokusai

References

• Hokusai
• Hokusai: beyond the Great Wave
• Hokusai The life and work of one of the greatest Japanese artists.