Hokusai, Japan's best known artist, is ironically Japan's least Japanese artist. Japan's best known woodblock print, The Great Wave, is very un-Japanese (see below).

Hokusai (1760-1849) lived during the Tokugawa period (1600 to 1867). In a Japan of traditional Confucian values and feudal regimentation, Hokusai was a thoroughly Bohemian artist: cocky, quarrelsome, restless, aggressive, and sensational. He fought with his teachers and was often thrown out of art schools. As a stubborn artistic genius, he was single-mindedly obsessed with art. At the end of his life, Hokusai left over 30,000 works including silk paintings, woodblock prints, picture books, manga, travel illustrations, erotic illustrations, paintings, and sketches.

Some of his paintings were public spectacles which measured over 200 sq. meters (2,000 sq. feet.) He definitely didn't care much for being respectful signing one of his last works as "The Art-Crazy Old Man". In his 89 years, Hokusai changed his name some thirty times (see below ~ Hokusai was not his real name) and he lived in at least ninety homes.

Hokusai' own words:

"From the age of six I had a mania for drawing the shapes of things. When I was fifty I had published a universe of designs. but all I have done before the the age of seventy is not worth bothering with. At seventy five I'll have learned something of the pattern of nature, of animals, of plants, of trees, birds, fish and insects. When I am eighty you will see real progress. At ninety I shall have cut my way deeply into the mystery of life itself. At a hundred I shall be a marvelous artist. At a hundred and ten everything I create; a dot, a line, will jump to life as never before. To all of you who are going to live as long as I do, I promise to keep my word. I am writing this in my old age. I used to call myself Hokosai, but today I sign my self 'The Old Man Mad About Drawing." ~~ Hokusai

Hokusai started out as a art student of woodblocks and paintings. During the Shogun period, Japan had sealed itself off from the rest of the world. Contact with Western culture was forbidden. Nevertheless, Hokusai discovered and studied the European copper-plate engravings that were being smuggled into the country. He learned about shading, coloring, realism, and landscape perspective. He introduced these elements into woodblock and ukiyo-e art, thus, revolutionizing and invigorating Japanese art.

Although Chinese and Japanese paintings had been using long distance landscape views for 1500 years, this style had never entered the woodblock print. Ukiyo-e woodblocks were produced for bourgeoisie city gentry who wanted images of street life, sumo wrestlers and geishas. The countryside and peasants were ignored.

The Breaking Wave Off Kanagawa, also called The Great Wave, is a woodblock print from Hokusai's series Thirty-six Views of Fuji, which is the high point of Japanese prints. The original is at the Hakone Museum in Japan.

To Westerners, this woodblock seemed to be the quintessential Japanese image, yet it is considered to be quite un-Japanese. Traditional Japanese artists would have never painted lower-class fishermen. Japanese ignored nature; they would not have used perspective; they wouldn't have paid much attention to the subtle shading of the sky. The Great Wave originated in Western art: landscape, long-distance perspective, nature and ordinary humans painted thru Japanese eyes.

Hokusai wasn't merely influenced by Western art. He transformed Dutch pastoral paintings by adding the Japanese style of flattening and the use of color surfaces as an element. By the the 1880s, Japanese prints were the rage in Western culture and Hokusai's prints were studied by young artists worldwide. The style was called Japonism (also in French Japonisme and Japonaiserie).

Fuji Seen From the Sea, 1834 Woodblock. From the series A Hundred Views of Mt. Fuji. In this wave, we see Hokusai's sense of humour. See how the foam breaks up into a flock of birds that disperse into wind?

Hokusai also drew thousands of small sketches. These are called Manga in Japanese. There are more than 15 volumes of Hokusai manga. The fisherman and his load of tuna are delicately drawn in three-dimensional perspective.

Hokusai Manga. Sketch on paper.

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

If you can stand it, there is much more info about Hokusai just click on the links below.

Sources:
Hokusai and Japanese Art
artelino.com
Hokusai Manga