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Edutainment > Articles on Art > Edo Period > Hokusai 1760-1849

Hokusai

36 Views of Mt. Fuji by Hokusai
Recarved Edition

Hokusai wrote his autobiography when he was seventy-three years old. He dated the beginning of his drawing activities to the age when he was five or six years old.

Hokusai - a Prodigy Child

Katsushika Hokusai started an apprenticeship at a woodcut workshop at the age of fifteen. At the age of 18 he became a pupil of Katsukawa Shunsho and took the name of Katsukawa Shunro. The early Hokusai prints were actor portraits, produced under the influence of Shunsho.

He remained loosely connected to the art school of Katsukawa Shunsho for fourteen years. During that period, he also took lessons from another master, Yusen from the Kano school. It was in this period that the artist studied Western-style paintings - visible in the use of perspective for some of his prints. The "flirting" with other art schools might have been the reason why he was expelled from the Katsukawa Art School after Shunsho's death in 1792.

A Restless Nature

Hokusai

36 Views of Mt. Fuji
Recarved Edition

According to his own biography, Hokusai changed his residence an incredible 93 times in his life. True or false - it is an expression of his restlessness. An average Japanese hardly ever moves more than once during his lifetime. He also changed his artist name several times - much to the distress of art historians and art experts.

The artist had little luck in his private life. His first wife died in 1793, leaving him alone with a son and two daughters. In 1797 he remarried. In 1812, Hokusai's eldest son died. His two daughters had an unhappy marriage, divorced and returned to their father's household. Hokusai adopted his eldest daughter's son as his own. But the lad turned out to be a good-for-nothing. In 1828, the artist's second wife died.

36 Views of Mt. Fuji

The series 36 Views of Mt. Fuji are certainly the best known Hokusai prints. And critics agree, that it is also his best work. Although called "36 views", it actually consists of 46 designs. The artist had worked on this series for nearly ten years before the publication in 1830.

Another famous landscape series is Shokoku Taki Meguri - A Journey to the Waterfalls of all the Provinces. From 1814 onward, Hokusai published the series of fifteen Manga sketchbooks. They are what the title says, illustrations and sketches made by Hokusai with a wide variety of subjects from all walks of life - some comic, some serious.

An Ukiyo-e Workaholic

Hokusai

The Great Wave
Recarved Edition

Hokusai must be imagined as a person who was completely obsessed by producing ukiyo-e prints. He lived for nothing else. He usually got up early in the morning and worked until after sunset. The art name Gakyo-rojin, which he used from 1834-1849 means old man mad with painting.

And this is what he wrote about himself in his autobiography. It is the quintessence of his art philosophy:

"From the age of five I have had a mania for sketching the forms of things. From about the age of fifty I produced a number of designs, yet of all I drew prior to the age of seventy there is truly nothing of great note. At the age of seventy-two I finally apprehended something of the true quality of birds, animals, insects, fish and of the vital nature of grasses and trees. Therefore, at eighty I shall have made some progress, at ninety I shall have penetrated even further the deeper meaning of things, at one hundred I shall have become truly marvelous, and at one hundred and ten, each dot, each line shall surely possess a life of its own. I only beg that gentlemen of sufficiently long life take care to note the truth of my words."

Hokusai was one of the most prolific of all ukiyo-e artists. At the end of his life he had produced more than 30,000 print designs.

The Name Game

This is the impressive list of the names used by Hokusai (after Sandra Andacht: "Collector's value Guide to Japanese Woodblock Prints", krause publications, ISBN 1-58221-005-5)

• 1779: Shunro
• 1781-1782: Zewaisai
• 1785-1794: Gumbatei
• 1795-1798: Sori
• 1797-1798: Hokusai Sori
• 1798-1819: Hokusai
• 1798-1811: Kako
• 1799: Fasenkyo Hokusai
• 1799: Tatsumasa Shinsei
• 1803: Senkozan
• 1805-1809: Kintaisha
• 1800-1808: Gakyojin
• 1805: Kyukyushin
• 1805-1806 and 1834-1849: Gakyo-rojin
• 1807-1824: Katsushika
• 1811-1820: Taito
• 1812: Kyorian Bainen
• 1812-1815: Raishin
• 1814: Tengudo Nettetsu
• 1820-1834: Iitsu
• 1821-1833: Zen saki no Hokusai Iitsu
• 1822: Fesenkyo Iitsu
• 1831-1849: Manji
• 1834: Tsuchimochi Nisaburo
• 1834-1846: Hyakusho Hachemon
• 1847-1849: Fujiwara Iitsu

Literature sources used for this Hokusai biography

• Lane, Richard, "Images from the Floating World: The Japanese Print", Fribourg, 1978, ISBN 0-914427-54-7
• Sandra Andacht: "Collector's value Guide to Japanese Woodblock Prints", krause publications, ISBN 1-58221-005-5

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Edo Period