Katsushika Hokusai

Katsushika Hokusai is quite possibly the best Japanese ukiyo-e artist.  Hokusai was known as, “the man who was mad with producing Japanese prints.”  At the age of five he was already obsessed with drawing and painting.  Hokusai is also known to be the most complicated of the Japanese ukiyo-e artists.  In Hokusai’s whole lifetime he changed his name many times, Hokusai is just one of them. Plus he also moved around a lot; to be precise 93 times, so it was really hard for anyone person to get intact with him.  Nonetheless, Hokusai has produced a tremendous amount of outstanding prints and paintings from which has made him famous. (Artelino, Breen, Chiappa)

-Prints From Hokusai-
(click on the image to enlarge)

Images credited to and permission granted by Jim Breen

On the autumn of 1760, at Honjo Warigesui in the province of Shimosa, Katsushika Hokusai was born.  It was said that he was adopted at the age of five by a man whose name is, Nakajima Ise.  Nakajima Ise, who is a mirror polisher, is also said to have possibly been Hokusai’s natural father.  Hokusai, at the age of eight, had already started learning how to produce ukiyo-e.  When Hokusai turned nineteen, he enrolled in an art school called, Katsukawa Art School.  Hokusai became an apprentice to Katsukawa Shunsho, the current head master of Katsukawa Art School.  Prints of actors and geishas were what Hokusai produced for his school.  During Hokuai’s fourteen years at the Katsukawa Art School, he also studied under a second master, which he learned about western art. Soon after his master, Katsukawa Shunsho’s, death, Hokusai was expelled for many reasons.  One was that he was “flirting” with the other art schools and another was that he was upset with the decision of who should become the next head master. (Artelino, Breen, Chiappa)

Although Hokusai was expelled, he continued his studies in art and continues to produce his own collections of prints and paintings.  With his interest in western paintings, mainly the Dutch, paintings, he started his own collections of prints with the addition of the western style.  Some of his best-known prints are the series of, 36 Views of Mt. Fuji, Chie no Umi (One Thousand Seas, 1826), and Ryukyu Hakkie (8 Views of Ryukyu, 1829).  Hokusai’s works are known to be the best of its style and type of prints. (Artelino, Breen, Chiappa)

Hokusai’s private life was very dramatic.  The first woman he married died in 1793.  His first wife left him with one son and two daughters.  Later his son died and as for his two daughters, they were unlucky as well.  Both his daughters were divorced and were forced to move back in with him.  Furthermore, his second wife, whom he married in 1797, also died. (Artelino)

During Hokusai’s last days he had produced over thirty thousand prints.  Hokusai lived till he was eighty-nine.  Although he wanted to live way beyond eighty-nine as quoted in his autobiography:          

"From the age of five I have had a mania for sketching the forms of things. From about the age of fifty I will 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)-

Hokusai’s last words when he died on April 18, 1849 was:

            "If heaven gives me ten more years, or an extension of even five years, I shall surely become a true artist." -(Hokusai)-

(Artelino, Chiappa)

Here is a list of all the names that Hokusai used during his lifetime:

            THE MANY NAMES OF HOKUSAI

(Artelino)