PR Hokusai 4C 23 June 08.Qxp

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HokusaiHokusai Text: after Edmond de Goncourt

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ISBN: 978-1-78042-996-0 After Edmond de Goncourt

Hokusai

Contents

Foreword 6-7

I. Life of Hokusai 8-39

II. Surimonos, Yellow Books, and Illustrated Novels 40-125

III. Manga and Sketchbooks 126-207

IV. Poetry Albums, Plates, Panels, and Other Works 208-251

Bibliography 252

Glossary 253

List of Illustrations 254-255 6 Foreword

okusai’s talent travelled across land ninety volumes; he collaborated on about brilliant courtesans, their silks and and sea to Europe long ago. But his thirty volumes: yellow books and popular embroidery, and the large belt knots spread Hwork, so original, so diverse, and books at first; eastern and western across their chests and stomachs. He so prolific, still remains misunderstood. It is promenades, glimpses of famous places, frightened observers with apparitions from true that, even in the artist’s homeland, practical manuals for decorators and artisans, his most awful and stirring fantastic though he has always been immensely a life of Sakyamuni, a conquest of Korea, imagination. popular, his work has not been received with tales, legends, novels, biographies of heroes the same fervour by the academy and by the and heroines and the thirty-six women poets To understand the art of a very particular, elite as by the Japanese people. Was he not and one hundred poets, with songbooks and distant people, it is not sufficient to learn, reproached, in his own time, for only doing multiple albums of birds, plants, patrons of more or less well, their language; it is “vulgar paintings”? Then however, few artists new fashion, books on education, morals, necessary to penetrate their soul, their tastes knew how to delve into the potential of anecdotes, and fantastic and natural sketches. – one must be the obedient student of this drawing techniques and methods as he did. soul and these tastes. It is, after all, founded What artist can vaunt his ability to draw with Hokusai tried everything, and succeeded. He on love, the profound ecstasy that artists feel his fingernails, his feet, or even his left hand was tireless, multitalented, and brilliant. He in expressing their country. They love it (if right handed) or inverted, with such accumulated drawings upon drawings, passionately, they cherish its beauty, its virtuosity, that it seems to have been drawn in stamps upon stamps, informing himself very clarity, and they try to reproduce its life from the most conventional way? specifically about his compatriots, their the heart. A happy affliction, Hokusai was an work, and their interests, the people in the eminent representative of those who work Hokusai illustrated more than 120 works, one streets, those in the fields, and on the sea. incessantly. of which, the Suiko-Gaden, consisted of He opened the gates to the walls that hid - Léon Hénnique

Blue Fuji, excerpt from the series Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku Sanjurokkei), c. 1830-1832. Horizontal oban, aizuri-e, 25.5 x 35.5 cm. Musée national des Arts asiatiques – Guimet, Paris.

The Seven Gods of Fortune, 1810. Ink, colour and gold on silk, 67.5 x 82.5 cm. Museo d’Arte Orientale Edoardo Chiossone, Genoa.

7 8 I. Life of Hokusai

okusai was born in 1760 (October through the bookseller’s illustrated books compositions representing a series of actors, or November according to some, and life in images for long months developed in the upright format of the drawings of HMarch according to others). He the young man’s taste and passion for actors by Shunsho, his master. At this time, was born in Edo in the Honjô drawing. Around 1773-74, he worked for a the young Shunro began to show a bit of the neighbourhood, close to the Sumida River woodcutter, and in 1775, under the name great sketch artist who would become the and to the countryside, a neighbourhood to Tetsuro, he engraved the last six pages of a great Hokusai. With perseverance and which the painter was much attached. He novel by Santchô. Thus, he became a relentless work, he continued to draw and to even signed his drawings, for a time, “the woodcutter, which he continued until the age produce, until 1786, compositions bearing peasant from Katsushika”, Katsushika being of eighteen. the signature of Katsukawa Shunro, or the provincial district where the Honjô simply, Shunro. neighbourhood is located. According to the In 1778, Hokusai, then named Tetsuzo, will left by his granddaughter, Shiraï Tati, he abandoned his profession as a woodcutter. In 1789, the young painter, at twenty-nine was the third son of Kawamura Itiroyemon, He was no longer willing to be the years old, was forced to leave Katsukawa’s who, under the name Bunsei, would have interpreter, the translator of another’s talent. studio under peculiar circumstances. As a been an artist of the new profession. Near He was taken by the desire to invent, to matter of fact, Hokusai would keep the odd the age of four, Hokusai, whose first compose, and to give a personal form to his habit of perpetually moving and of never name was Tokitaro, was adopted by creations. He had the ambition to become a living more than one or two months in the Nakajima Isse, mirror designer for the painter. He entered, at the age of eighteen, same place. This departure took place under Tokugawa royal family. the studio of Katsukawa Shunsho, where his the following circumstances: Hokusai had budding talent earned him the name of painted a poster of a stamp merchant. The Hokusai, while still a child, became the Katsukawa Shunro. There, he painted actors merchant was so happy with the poster that assistant to a great bookseller in Edo, where and theatre sets in the style of Tsutzumi he had it richly framed and placed in front of while contemplating illustrated books, he Torin and produced many loose-leaf his shop. One day, one of his fellow students carried out his duties as assistant so lazily drawings, called kyoka surimono. The master at the studio, who had studied there longer and disdainfully that he was fired. Paging allowed him to sign, under this name, his than he, passed the shop. He thought the

Blue Kongo (Seimen Kongo), 1780-1790. Nishiki-e, 37.3 x 13.7 cm. Honolulu Academy of Arts, donation of James A. Michener, Honolulu.

9 poster was bad and tore it down to save the Tominosuke, took over the house of the book for women covering etiquette. Hokusai honour of the Shunsho studio. A dispute mirror designer Nakajima Isse and led a had two older brothers and a younger sister, ensued between the elder and the younger disorderly life, causing his father many who all died in their childhood. student, following which Hokusai left the problems. His daughter Omiyo became the studio, resolving to work only from his wife of the painter Yanagawa Shighenobu. His life was filled with pitfalls. Thus, near the own inspiration and to become a painter She died shortly after her divorce and after end of 1834, serious problems arose in the independent of the schools that preceded having given birth to a grandson who was a old painter’s life. Hokusai’s daughter Omiyo him. In this country where artists seem to source of tribulation for his grandfather. His married the painter, Yanagawa Shighenobu. change names almost as often as clothes, he second daughter Otetsu was a truly gifted From this marriage came a veritable good- abandoned the signature of Katsukawa to painter who died very young. By his second for-nothing, whose swindles, always paid by take that of Mugura, which means shrub, wife, Hokusai also had a son and two Hokusai, were the cause of his misery during telling the public that the painter bearing this daughters. His second son, Akitiro, was a his last years. It is plausible that, following new name did not belong to any studio. civil servant of the Tokugawa rule and a poet, commitments made by the grandfather to Completely shaking off the yoke of the and became the adopted son of Kase keep his grandson from going to prison, Katsukawa style, the drawings signed Mugura Sakijiuro. He erected Hokusai’s tomb, and commitments that he could not keep, he was are freer and adopt a personal perspective. took on his name. The grandson of Takitiro, forced to leave Edo in secret, to take refuge named Kase Tchojiro, was the schoolyard more than thirty leagues from there in the Hokusai married twice, but the names of his friend of Hayashi, a great collector of Sagami province, in the city of Uraga, hiding two wives are unknown. It is also not known Japanese art. Hokusai’s other daughters were his artistic name under the common name of whether or not his separation from them was Onao, who died in her childhood, and Oyei, Miuraya Hatiyemon. Even upon returning to due to death or divorce. It is certain that the who married a painter named Tomei but Edo, he did not dare, at first, give out his painter lived alone after the age of fifty-two divorced him and lived with her father until address and called himself the “priest- or fifty-three. By his first wife, Hokusai had the end of his life. She was an artist, who painter”, and moved into the courtyard of the a son and two daughters. His first son, illustrated Onna Chohoki, an educational Mei-o-in temple, in the middle of a small

10 Kabuki Theater in Edo seen from an Original Perspective, c. 1788-1789. Nishiki-e, 26.3 x 39.3 cm. The British Museum, London.

11 12 forest. From this exile, which lasted from where editors refused to cover the whose composition was given by the painter 1834 to 1839, remain some interesting letters publication costs of a book or a single plate. to his friend Tosaki, with sketches in the from the painter to his editors. These letters During this editors’ strike, Hokusai, counting margin of the prescription representing the attest to the old man’s trials caused by his on the popularity of his name, had the idea of lemon, the knife for cutting the lemon, and grandson’s mischief, and to the destitution of composing albums from “the tip of his the pot. Here is the composition of this the great artist, who complained, one harsh brush”, and he earned about what he needed ‘lemon curd’: “Within twenty-four Japanese winter, of having only one robe to keep his to live during this year from the sale of these hours (forty-eight hours) of the attack, take a septuagenarian body warm. These letters original drawings, undoubtedly sold very lemon and cut it into small pieces with a unveil his attempts to soften his editors, cheaply. It was in 1839 that Hokusai returned bamboo knife, not an iron or copper one. Put through the melancholy exposition of his to Edo, after four years of exile in Uraga. But the lemon, thus cut, into a clay pot. Add a go misery, illustrated with nice sketches. They this was another miserable year for the artist. (one quarter litre) of very good sake and let also unveil some of his ideas on translating He had only just moved in, again settling in it cook over low heat until the mixture his drawings into woodcuts, initiated in the Honjô, the country neighbourhood that the thickens. Then, you must swallow, in two language marked by crude images with which painter loved, when a fire burnt his house; it doses, the lemon curd, after removing the he was able to make the workers charged with destroyed many of his drawings, outlines, seeds, in hot water; the medicinal effect will printing his works understand the way to and sketches, and the painter was only able take place after twenty-four or thirty hours.” obtain artistic prints. to save his brush. This remedy completely cured Hokusai and seems to have kept him healthy until 1849, The year 1839, which followed three years of At the age of sixty-eight or sixty-nine, when he fell ill at ninety years old, in a house poor rice harvests, was a year of scarcity Hokusai had an attack of apoplexy, from in Asakusa, the ninety-third home in his during which Japanese restrained their which he emerged by treating it with ‘lemon vagabond life of moving from one house to spending and no longer bought images and curd’, a remedy in Japanese medicine, another. This is, undoubtedly, when he wrote

The Actor Ichikawa Omezo in the Role of Soga no Goro, 1792. Nishiki-e, 27.2 x 12.7 cm. Kintoki the Herculean Child with a Bear and an Eagle, c. 1790-1795. Museum Volkenkunde, Leiden. Oban, nishiki-e. Ostasiatische Kunstsammlung, Museum für Asiatische Kunst, Staatliche Museen The Actor Ichikawa Ebizo IV, 1791. zu Berlin, Berlin. Nishiki-e, 30.8 x 14 cm. National Museum of Tokyo, Tokyo. The Actor Ichikawa Yaozo III in the Role of Soga no Goro and Iwai Hanshiro IV in the Role of his Mistress, Sitting, 1791. The Actor Sakata Hangoro III, 1791. Hosoban, nishiki-e. Nishiki-e, 31.4 x 13.5 cm. Japanese Ukiyo-e Museum, Matsumoto. Museum of Fine Arts, William Sturgis Bigelow Collection, Boston.

13 14 15 to his old friend Takaghi this ironically Hokusai died at the age of ninety, on the woman who died in 1821, that of one of allusive letter: “King Yemma is very old and is eighteenth day of the fourth month of the his daughters. preparing to retire from business. He has second year of Kayei (10 May, 1849). The built, to this end, a pretty country house and poetry of his last moment, as he left in death, It is uncertain as to whether or not there is an he has asked me to go paint him a kakemono. is almost untranslatable: “Oh! Freedom, existing authentic portrait of the master. The I am thus obliged to leave, and when I do beautiful freedom, when one goes into the portrait of Hokusai, together with the leave, I will take my drawings with me. I will summer fields to leave his perishable body novelist Bakin, after a stamp by Kuniyoshi, is rent an apartment at the corner of Hell there!” Another tomb was erected for him by no longer a portrait, as the sketch represents Street, where I will be happy to have you visit his granddaughter, Shiraï Tati, in the garden him kneeling, offering the editor his little if you have the occasion to stop by. Hokusai.” of the Seikioji temple of Asakusa, next to yellow book, “The Tactics of General the gravestone of his father, Kawamura Fourneau”, or of “Improvisational Cuisine”. At the time of his last illness, Hokusai was Ïtiroyemon. One can read on the large Of the great artist, there are no childhood or surrounded by the filial love of his students, gravestone: Gwakiojin Manjino Haka (Tomb adult portraits. The only existing portrait is and was cared for by his daughter Oyei, of Manji, crazy old artist); on the base: the one given by the Japanese biography by who had divorced her husband and was Kawamura Uji (Kawamura family). On the left Iijima Hanjuro, a portrait of him as an old living with her father. The thoughts of the side of the gravestone, at the top, are three man, preserved in the family and which had dying “crazy artist”, always trying to defer his religious names: Firstly, Nanso-in Kiyo been painted by his daughter Oyei, who death to perfect his talent, made him repeat Hokusai shinji (the knight of the faith, signed Ohi. One sees a forehead furrowed by in a voice that was no longer more than a Hokusai in colourful glory), Nanso (a deep wrinkles, eyes marked by crow’s feet whisper, “if heaven would only give me ten religious figure from the South of So); with swollen bags beneath them, and there is, more years…” There, Hokusai broke off, and Secondly, Seisen-in Ho-oku Mioju Shin-nio, in the half closed eyes, some of that mist that after a pause, “if heaven would only give me the name of a woman who died in 1828, sculptors of netzukes place in the look of five more years of life… I could become a who may be his second wife; and thirdly, their ascetics. The man has a large, bony truly great painter.” Jô-un Mioshin Shin-nio, another name of a nose, a thin mouth tucked under the fold of

Actors Ichikawa Komazu II and Matsumoto Koshiro IV, c. 1791. Nishiki-e diptych, each sheet: 32 x 14 cm. Ginza Tokyo Yôkan Collection, Tokyo.

16 17 18 his cheeks and the square chin of a strong The style called Hokusai-riu is the style of reality that escapes from the noble will, connected to his neck by wattles. The true Ukiyo-e painting, naturalist painting, requirements of traditional Japanese colouring of the image, which matches the and Hokusai is the one and only founder of a painting. He was passionate about his art, to tone of old flesh fairly well, renders well the painting style that, based on Chinese the point of madness, and sometimes signed anaemic pallor of the bags under his eyes, painting, is the style of the modern Japanese his productions, “the drawing madman”. around his mouth, and of his earlobes. What school. Hokusai victoriously lifted up is striking about the face of this man of paintings of his country with Persian and However, this painter – outside of the cult genius is its length, from his eyebrows to his Chinese influences, and by a study one might status given to him by his students – was chin and the low height and dented top of his call religious in nature, rejuvenated it, considered by his contemporaries to be an head, with, at the temples, a few rare little renewed it, and made it uniquely Japanese. entertainer for the masses, a low artist of hairs resembling the young grass in his He is also a universal painter, who, with very works not worthy of being seen by serious landscapes. Another portrait of Hokusai, of lively drawings, reproduced men, women, men of taste in the empire of the rising which a facsimile was published in the birds, fish, trees, flowers, and sprigs of sun. Hokusai did not receive from the Katsushika den, represents him near the age herbs. He completed 30,000 drawings or public the veneration accorded to the great of eighty, next to a pot, crouching under a paintings. He is also the true creator of the painters of Japan, because he devoted blanket, showing the profile of an old head Ukiyo-e, the founder of the ‘école vulgaire’, himself to representing “common life”, but shaking and of thin legs. Here is the origin of which is to say that he was not content to since he had inherited the artistic schools this portrait: the editor Szabo ordered the imitate the academic painters of the Tosa of Kano and Tosa, he certainly surpassed illustration of the “Hundred Poets”, from school, with representing, in a precious style, the Okiyo and the Buncho. Ironically, it Hokusai. The artist, before starting his work, the splendour of the court, the official life of was the fact that Hokusai was one of the sent a sample to determine the format of the high dignitaries, the artificial pomp of most original artists that prevented him publication, and on this sample, his brush aristocratic existence; he brought into his from enjoying the glory he merited during left this “caricature”. work the entire humanity of his country in a his life.

A Mare and her Foal, 1795-1798. Nishiki-e, 35.5 x 24 cm. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris.

19 Collection of Surimonos Illustrating Fantastic Poems, c. 1794-1796. Surimono, nishiki-e, 21.9 x 16 cm. Pulverer Collection, Cologne.

20 One Hundred Poems by One Hundred Poets Explained by the Nurse (series) Snow, Moon and Flowers (series) Emperor Sanjo, Removed from Power ...... 211 The Moon over the Yodo River and the Castle of Osaka ...... 168 Fishermen Pulling a Net, Illustration of a Poem by Kakinomoto no ...... 218-219 Summer Bathing ...... 82 Palanquin Carriers, Illustrating a Poem by Fujiwara no Michinobu ...... 215 Sumo Wrestlers Ki no Natora and Otomo no Yoshio ...... 109 The Poet Abe no Nakamaro ...... 216 The Swordsmith Munechika and the God of Inari ...... 70 The Poet Onakotomi no Yoshinobu ason ...... 212 The Syllabary “Chushingura“ (series) Sarumaru Dayu ...... 220 Act I ...... 81 Villagers Crossing a Bridge on a Donkey, Act V ...... 78 Illustration of a Poem by Ariwara no Narihira ...... 208 One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji (series) T Mount Fuji and a Dragon ...... 203 Taro Moon ...... 24 Wise Men on Mount Fuji ...... 206 Tea House for Travellers ...... 52 One Thousand Images of the Sea (series) Tea-Whisk Seller Watching Geese ...... 73 Choshi in Chiba Province ...... 165 Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji (serie) The River Tone in Kazusa Province ...... 162 At Sea off Kazusa ...... 128 Outline for a Painting of a Phoenix (attributed to Hokusai) ...... 230 Blue Fuji ...... 4 The Coast at Tago near Ejiri on the Road to Tokaido ...... 140-141 P Cool Wind on a Clear Morning (or Red Fuji) ...... 144-145 Parody of a Courtesan in a Boat ...... 61 Ejiri in Suruga Province ...... 136 Peasants Surprised by a Storm, in a Landscape with Trees Drawn in Western Style ...... 119 The Fields of Umezawa Hamlet in Sagami Province ...... 142 Phoenix ...... 231 Kajikazawa in Kai province ...... 126 Picturesque Views of Famous Bridges from Various Provinces (series) Mishima Peak in Kai Province ...... 139 The Boat Bridge in Sano in Kozuke Province ...... 194 Mount Fuji Seen from Kanaya on the Road to Tokaido ...... 134 Suspended Bridge on Mount Gyodo near Ashikaga ...... 191 Mount Fuji Seen from the Rice Fields in Owari Province ...... 129 The Tenma Bridge in Settsu Province ...... 192-193 Pit Sawyers in the Mountains of Totomi ...... 136 Plum Tree in Bloom ...... 40 Rain Storm below the Summit ...... 143 The Poet Kakinomoto no Hitomaro ...... 39 The Sazai Pavilion of the Temple of the Five Hundred Rakan ...... 131 Propitiatory Dance ...... 116 The Temple of Hongaji at Asakusa in Edo ...... 137 Under a Great Wave off the Coast at Kanagawa ...... 132-133 R View of the Mitsui Store on Suruga Street in Edo ...... 137 Rare Views of Famous Landscapes (series) Tiger among the Bamboo under a Full Moon ...... 247 Lake Suwa in Shimosa Province ...... 197 Tiger in the Rain ...... 247 Mount Haruna in Kozuke Province ...... 198 Trees in Bloom in Yoshino ...... 106 Sodegaura in Shimosa Province ...... 197 Turtle and Goldfish ...... 75 Ritual Dances for Boys (series) Turtles Swimming ...... 149 Village near a Bridge ...... 29 Two Carps ...... 151 The River of Jewels near Ide ...... 46 Two Cranes on a Snow-Covered Pine ...... 148 The River of Jewels near Mishima ...... 46 Two Women and a Child on the Shore ...... 62 Two Women Puppeteers ...... 23 S Samurais on Horseback ...... 115 V The Sanctuary of Juniso in Yotsuya, Edo ...... 84 The Valiant Oi and the Chinese Warrior Fan Kuai ...... 102 Self-Portrait of Hokusai at Eighty-Three ...... 236 View of Koshigoe from Shichirigahama ...... 122 Series of Large Flowers (series) View of Ushigafuchi Road in the Kudan Neighborhood of Edo ...... 87 Iris and Grasshopper ...... 178-179 Views of the Heights of Ryukyu (series) Morning Glories and a Tree Frog ...... 172-173 Sunset in Jungai ...... 171 Peonies and Butterfly ...... 177 Voyage to the Waterfalls of the Various Provinces (series) Series of Small Flowers (series) The Amida Waterfall on the Road to Kiso ...... 188 Bullfinch and Weeping Cherry Tree in Bloom ...... 185 The Kirifuri Waterfalls on Mount Kurokami in Shimotsuke Province ...... 189 Canary and Peonies ...... 182 Crossbill and Thistle ...... 181 W Cuckoo and Azaleas ...... 180 Warrior on a Rearing Horse ...... 120 Wagtail and Wisteria ...... 174 Woman beneath a Willow in Winter ...... 48 The Seven Bad Habits (series) Woman Holding an Obi ...... 82 Women with a Telescope ...... 35 Woman with Folded Silk ...... 101 The Seven Gods of Fortune ...... 6 Shells of the Genroku Era (series) Y Whale Hunters on the Beach at Katase, Yamauba, Kintoki, and Various Animals ...... 93 near Enoshima Island, Illustrating the Purple Shell ...... 105 Young Dandy ...... 36 Shirabyoshi, Actor of the Heian Court ...... 101 Young Girl from Ohara ...... 69 The Silky Branches of the Willow (series) Young Woman Applying Makeup seen from behind; Women on the Beach at Enoshima ...... 26-27 above, a Poem in Chinese by Santo Kyoden ...... 36

255 atsushika Hokusai is H Kwithout a doubt the most famous Japanese artist known in the Western world since the middle of the O nineteenth century.

Reflecting the artistic expression of an isolated K civilisation, the works of Hokusai, one of the first Japanese artists to emerge in Europe, greatly influenced the Impressionists and U Post-Impressionists painters, such as Vincent van Gogh.

Considered during his life as a living Ukiyo-e master, S Hokusai fascinates us with the variety and the significance of his work which spanned almost A ninety years and is presented here in all its breadth and diversity. I