Hokusai, the Old Man Mad About Art: The Life Behind The Great Wave and Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji

Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849) was a Japanese artist of the Edo period, best known for his woodblock prints and above all for The Great Wave off Kanagawa, the first image in his series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji; over a working life of about seventy years he produced more than 30,000 paintings, sketches, prints and book illustrations. He kept changing his style, and even his name, until he died at 88, still convinced he was only beginning to understand how to draw.

A boy from Edo

Hokusai's date of birth is not certain, but it is often given as 31 October 1760, in the Katsushika district of Edo, today's Tokyo, into a family of artisans. At twelve his father sent him to work in a bookshop and lending library, where people borrowed books printed from carved wooden blocks. At fourteen he became an apprentice to a woodcarver, and at eighteen he entered the studio of the print artist Katsukawa Shunshō. His first prints, published in 1779, were pictures of kabuki actors, a standard subject of the ukiyo-e ("pictures of the floating world") tradition.

Thirty names

Hokusai used at least thirty names during his life, more than any other major Japanese artist. Changing names was common practice, but his name changes were so frequent, and so closely tied to changes in his art, that scholars use them to divide his career into periods. "Hokusai" is just the most famous of them. Late in life he signed his work "Gakyō Rōjin Manji", meaning "The Old Man Mad About Art".

New subjects

After his master died in 1793, Hokusai explored other styles, including European ones he saw in French and Dutch copper engravings. He also changed what he drew. Instead of the courtesans and actors that filled most ukiyo-e prints, he turned to landscapes and to the daily life of Japanese people of every social level. From 1812 he published drawing manuals, and his famous sketchbooks, the Hokusai Manga, filled volumes with people, animals, plants and everyday scenes drawn with humour and energy.

The Great Wave

In the early 1830s, during a boom in domestic travel and inspired by his own fascination with Mount Fuji, Hokusai produced the series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji. Its first print, The Great Wave off Kanagawa, shows a huge, claw-like wave about to crash over three boats of rowers, while Mount Fuji sits small and calm in the distance. The contrast between the violent sea and the still mountain, the bold design and the use of imported Prussian blue made it unforgettable. Together with Fine Wind, Clear Morning, often called Red Fuji, it secured his fame in Japan and abroad.

Old age and ambition

Hokusai never stopped pushing himself. In a famous postscript to One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji, he wrote that nothing he had drawn before the age of seventy was worth much, that at seventy-three he had begun to understand the structure of living things, and that he hoped to keep improving until every dot and line would seem alive. In 1839 a fire destroyed his studio and much of his work, and younger artists such as Hiroshige were becoming more popular. Yet at 83 he travelled to Obuse in the mountains of Shinano to paint at the invitation of a wealthy patron. He died in 1849.

Hokusai and the world

After Japan opened to the West in the 1850s, Japanese prints flooded into Europe. Hokusai's work had a strong influence on Western artists of the late nineteenth century, part of the fashion known as Japonism. Today The Great Wave is one of the most reproduced images in the world, appearing on everything from posters to Japanese passports, and copies are held by major museums worldwide.

Learn with Hokusai: English phrases

Phrase	Meaning	Example
a woodblock print	a picture printed from carved wood	Hokusai made woodblock prints.
a series	a group of related works	Thirty-six Views is a famous series.
in the distance	far away	Mount Fuji appears in the distance.
a late bloomer	someone who succeeds later in life	Hokusai was a late bloomer.
to make waves	to cause a big reaction	His prints made waves in Europe.

Try this: Describe The Great Wave in three English sentences, using "in the distance" and "to make waves".