Hokusai

Genius of the Japanese Ukiyo-E

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Last edited by MARC Bot
July 9, 2024 | History

Hokusai

Genius of the Japanese Ukiyo-E

  • 1 Want to read

Hokusai is perhaps the Asian artist best known in the West. His influence has extended from the Impressionists to later modern art and even to commercial design. A few of his works are so frequently reproduced that they are almost as familiar as the face of the Mona Lisa. Yet the "Great Wave" and the "Red Fuji" from the Thirty-six Views of Mt. Fuji represent only a tiny action of Hokusai's output. The pages of the Sketches, with their teeming humanity and their boundless interest in the details of everyday life, give only a small idea of his true scope. Hokusai's life was characterized by a prodigious energy and productivity that continued to the end of his ninth decade; his output comprises a correspondingly broad variety of genres and styles. Despite this, it is still not sufficiently realized just how great is the range, and how many masterpieces it includes.

The bold compositions and the grasp of essentials seen in the Thirty-six Views find their counterpart in the masterly monochromes of the One Hundred views of Mt. Fuji. Against the daring simplifications of these works may be set the elaborate refinement and delicacy seen in many of the surimono prints and books of illustrated verse. The brilliant coloring and decorative qualities of Hokusai's brush paintings of beautiful women and legendary subjects are rivalled by the unsurpassed skill in ink drawing found in the best of his book illustrations, some of which are masterpieces in their own right.

Even the flower-and-bird series and the albums of sketches from life, which might seem to represent essentially minor genres, provide at their best a sense of color and inventiveness of composition that rival those of Hokusai's landscapes. On the oilier hand, the interest in human beings and in genre subjects is not confined to the Sketches and some of the Thirty-six Views, but is apparent again and again in the art manuals, the book illustrations, and even in a late print series such as the Nurse's Illustrated Hyakunin Isshu.

There are religious pictures and pictures of children and sumo wrestlers; experiments with Western perspective and with various combinations of style, whether Japanese, Chinese, or Western; moods ranging from the elegant to the earthy, from the lightly fanciful to the heavily grotesque. Even in his very last years, Hokusai's unflagging energy was taking him into new realms reaching beyond the ukiyo-e proper.

The aim of this work is to present a more balanced picture of Hokusai's achievement, a selection ranging over the whole oeuvre that will give some idea of the strength, the delicacy, and the fabulous inventive powers of this truly universal genius of the ukiyo-e.

Publish Date
Language
English
Pages
96

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Edition Availability
Cover of: Hokusai
Hokusai: Genius of the Japanese Ukiyo-e
November 15, 1999, Kodansha International
Paperback in English - New Ed edition
Cover of: Hokusai
Hokusai: Genius of the Japanese Ukiyo-E
June 1995, Kodansha International (JPN)
Hardcover in English

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Book Details


First Sentence

""Katsushika Hokusai made his artistic debut in 1779 at the age of nineteen as a pupil of Katsukawa Shunsho (1726-92), active at the time as a master of the yakusha nigao-e (likenesses"" of well-known Kabuki actors).""

Classifications

Library of Congress
NE1325.K3 A4 1995

The Physical Object

Format
Hardcover
Number of pages
96
Dimensions
12 x 9.5 x 0.8 inches
Weight
2 pounds

ID Numbers

Open Library
OL9037163M
ISBN 10
4770019289
ISBN 13
9784770019288
OCLC/WorldCat
32624938
Library Thing
963412
Goodreads
7176051

Source records

marc_columbia MARC record

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History

Download catalog record: RDF / JSON / OPDS | Wikipedia citation
July 9, 2024 Edited by MARC Bot import existing book
August 10, 2010 Edited by IdentifierBot added LibraryThing ID
April 24, 2010 Edited by Open Library Bot Fixed duplicate goodreads IDs.
April 16, 2010 Edited by bgimpertBot Added goodreads ID.
April 30, 2008 Created by an anonymous user Imported from amazon.com record