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Childhood & Early Life. Hokusai was born Tokitaro. His date of birth is disputed. According to some sources, it is October 31, 1760, which equates to the 23rd day of the ninth month of the 10th year of the Horeki era. His parentage, too, is unclear. It is presumed that he is the son of Nakajima Ise and his mistress.
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Katsushika Hokusai. Recommended Lists: Japanese Celebrities....
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Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji: The Great Wave Off the Coast of Kanagawa (Edo period, 19th century) by Katsushika Hokusai Tokyo National Museum. 1. He was an apprentice wood carver at 14. Katsushika Hokusai, 'Rainstorm Beneath the Summit' (Sanka haku'u), a colour woodblock print (1831/1831) British Museum. 2.
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- Early years.
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Hokusai (born October 1760, Edo [now Tokyo], Japan—died May 10, 1849, Edo) Japanese master artist and printmaker of the ukiyo-e (“pictures of the floating world”) school. His early works represent the full spectrum of ukiyo-e art, including single-sheet prints of landscapes and actors, hand paintings, and surimono (“printed things”), such as greeti...
Hokusai was born in the Honjo quarter just east of Edo (Tokyo) and became interested in drawing at the age of five. He was adopted in childhood by a prestigious artisan family named Nakajima but was never accepted as an heir—possibly supporting the theory that, though the true son of Nakajima, he had been born of a concubine.
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Hokusai is said to have served in his youth as clerk in a lending bookshop, and from 15 to 18 years of age he was apprenticed to a wood-block engraver. This early training in the book and printing trades obviously contributed to Hokusai’s artistic development as a printmaker.
The earliest contemporary record of Hokusai dates from the year 1778, when, at the age of 18, he became a pupil of the leading ukiyo-e master, Katsukawa Shunshō. The young Hokusai’s first published works appeared the following year—actor prints of the kabuki theatre, the genre that Shunshō and the Katsukawa school practically dominated.
To judge from the ages of his several children, Hokusai must have married in his mid-20s. Possibly under the influence of family life, from this period his designs tended to turn from prints of actors and women to historical and landscape subjects, especially uki-e (semi-historical landscapes using Western-influenced perspective techniques), as well as prints of children. The artist’s book illustrations and texts turned as well from the earlier themes to historical and didactic subjects. At the same time, Hokusai’s work in the surimono genre during the subsequent decade marks one of the early peaks in his career. Surimono were prints issued privately for special occasions—New Year’s and other greetings, musical programs and announcements, private verse selections—in limited editions and featuring immaculate printing of the highest quality.
In format, Hokusai’s oeuvre from this period covers the gamut of ukiyo-e art: single-sheet prints, surimono, picture books and picture novelettes, illustrations to verse anthologies and historical novels, erotic books and album prints, and hand paintings and sketches. In his subject matter, Hokusai only occasionally (in a few notable prints, in paintings, and erotica) chose to compete with Utamaro, the acknowledged master of voluptuous figure prints. Aside from this limitation, however, Hokusai’s work encompassed a wide range, with particular emphasis on landscape views and historical scenes in which figures were often of secondary interest. Around the turn of the century he experimented for a time with Western-style perspective and colouring.
From the early 19th century Hokusai commenced illustrating yomihon (the extended historical novels that were just coming into fashion). Under their influence, his style began to suffer important and clearly visible changes between 1806 and 1807. His figure work becomes more powerful but increasingly less delicate; there is greater attention to classical or traditional themes (especially of samurai, or warriors, and Chinese subjects) and a turning away from the contemporary Ukiyo-e world.
In about the year 1812, Hokusai’s eldest son died. This tragedy was not only an emotional but also an economic event, for, as adopted heir to the affluent Nakajima family, the son had been instrumental in obtaining a generous stipend for Hokusai, so that he did not need to worry about the uncertainties of income from his paintings, designs, and illustrations, which at this period were paid for more with “gifts” than with set fees.
Whether for economic reasons or not, from this time on Hokusai’s attention turned gradually from novel illustration to the picture book and, particularly, to the type of wood-block-printed copybook designed for amateur artists (including the famous Hokusai manga). Very likely his intention was to find new pupils and hence new patronage, and in this he succeeded to some degree.
Though famed for his detailed prints and illustrations, Hokusai was also fond of displaying his artistic prowess in public—making, for example, huge paintings (some fully 200 square metres [about 2,000 square feet] in area) of mythological figures before festival crowds, in both Edo and Nagoya. He was once even summoned to show his artistic skills before the shogun (the military leader who, although theoretically subordinate to the emperor, was in fact the ruler of Japan).
In the summer of 1828, Hokusai’s second wife died. The master was then 68, afflicted intermittently with paralysis and left alone, evidently with only a profligate grandson, who had proved to be an incorrigible delinquent. It is probably no coincidence, therefore, that before long Hokusai’s favourite daughter (and pupil), O-ei, broke her unhappy marriage with a minor artist named Tōmei and returned to her father’s side, where she was to stay for his remaining years.
Hokusai embodied in his long lifetime the essence of the Ukiyo-e school of art during its final century of development. His stubborn genius also represents, in its 70 years of continuous artistic creation, the prototype of the single-minded artist, striving only to complete a given task. Moreover, Hokusai constitutes a figure who has, since the lat...
Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849), Poem diviner. Hanging scroll, ink and light colour on paper, Japan, 1827. Gift of Sir William Gwynne-Evans. In 1819, Hokusai turned 60. Looking forward to another journey around the 60-year East Asian calendrical cycle, he devised the new art name Iitsu, meaning 'one again'.
The Great Wave off Kanagawa Fine Wind, Clear Morning. Katsushika Hokusai (葛飾 北斎, c. 31 October 1760 – 10 May 1849), known mononymously as Hokusai, was a Japanese ukiyo-e artist of the Edo period, active as a painter and printmaker. [ 1 ] He is best known for the woodblock print series Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji, which includes the ...
Jul 4, 2023 · 10. “The First Ever Viral Image”. Katsushika Hokusai – Kanagawa oki nami ura (Under the well of the Great Wave of Kanagawa). Sold (Est: $200,000 USD – $300,000 USD) via Christie’s (March 2019). The Great Wave of Kanagawa stands as one of Hokusai’s most renowned works.
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Jan 17, 2023 · Chuban nishiki-e color woodblock. The man we know today as Hokusai was born in 1760 in Edo (modern-day Tokyo) and given the name Tokitaro. His talent in drawing and painting emerged during his early years, and at the age of nineteen he was apprenticed to a painter and printmaker named Katsukawa Shunsho.
