Mainichi Shinbun, December 2, 2005
Unprecedented Hokusai show spans 70 years of work by Japan's greatest
woodblock artist

[image] This photo released by Tokyo National Museum, shows the
woodblock print "A Mild Breeze on a Fine Day" of The Thirty-six Views of
Mount Fuji by Katsushika Hokusai, possessed by Musee National des Arts
Asiatiques Guimet. The Red Fuji print is to be exhibited during autumn
2005 at Tokyo National Museum in Tokyo in mammoth exhibit "Hokusai" that
is perhaps the best, most comprehensive show ever organized of the
country's most famous artist. (AP)

An ominous blue wave crashing over snow-cloaked Mount Fuji. Designed
nearly two centuries ago by creative genius Katsushika Hokusai, the
iconic woodblock print remains as emblematic of Japan as sumo, sushi and
samurai.

Now not just one, but two of the sublime originals are included in an
unprecedented exhibition at the Tokyo National Museum that is perhaps
the best, most comprehensive show ever organized of the country's most
famous artist.

And like noble Fuji in the frothy wave's shadow, even a masterpiece like
"The Great Wave" can seem overwhelmed in the sea of art on display. The
mammoth exhibit "Hokusai" spans the prolific artist's 70-year career,
from his debut as a teenager to death at age 89, uniting more than 500
pieces.

"Hokusai" runs in Tokyo through Dec. 4. Parts of the show will travel to
the United States in March 2006 for a viewing at the Smithsonian
Institution's Arthur M. Sackler Gallery and Freer Gallery of Art, which
together form the Washington museum's Asian art collection.

The Tokyo selection is just a sliver of the 30,000 works churned out by
Hokusai until his death in 1849.

But that sliver chronicles his progression from a youngster dabbling in
the imported technique of perspective to a popular purveyor of
"manga"-style illustrated books to passionate master whose stylized,
abstract designs influenced the impressionist movement and were avidly
collected by such artists as Monet, Degas and Toulouse-Lautrec.

While the exhibit duly covers Hokusai's familiar woodblock prints, also
known as ukiyoe, it also features hanging scrolls, silk paintings, fan
prints, illustrated books and drawings -- which all confirm his sweeping
talent. The genres range from mystical mountainscapes and kimono-clad
courtesans to sword-wielding warriors, tormented ghosts and dainty flowers.

"Everyone knows Hokusai for his waves and Fuji prints," said curator
Hiroyoshi Tazawa, who spent five years searching for the best works from
79 different collections. "We wanted to freshen the image and show the
whole Hokusai."

Hokusai's varied repertoire went hand-in-hand with his restless
lifestyle. Cocky and bohemian, the artist changed homes 93 times,
outlived two wives and used more than two dozen artist names, of which
Hokusai is only one. In his later years, he stamped his works
"Gakyorojin," or "Old Man Mad About Art."

Woodblock prints were once considered secondary to traditional Chinese
ink painting, which was seen as high art in Japan. The vibrant pictures
of famous sites in Tokyo or popular geishas were meant more as souvenirs
or super-sized post cards.

"If Heaven had lent me but five years more, I would have become a great
painter," Hokusai complained on his deathbed.

Yet, modern critics agree he had long before achieved master status.

His acclaimed "36 Views of Mount Fuji" series, of which "The Great Wave"
is the centerpiece, took nearly a decade to complete, starting in the
1820s. The Tokyo exhibit has 26 scenes from the series, including three
Red Fujis, a print which like the Wave has become a commercial triumph,
emblazoned on everything from T-shirts to coffee mugs worldwide.

The Fuji views took woodblock art to a new level by depicting what had
been largely ignored by other printmakers: How a scene changes from
moment to moment with the play of light, the turning of seasons and the
vantage point of the viewer.

Side-by-side impressions of the same scene give a glimpse Hokusai's goal.

Traditionally, only the first 200 printings of a design were supervised
by the artist, meaning color and shading in earlier prints better
matched his vision. Publishers often switched colors in later prints to
match changing customer tastes or cost constraints.

In a later Red Fuji on view, for example, the volcano's rising cone
appears a uniform crimson as it punctures a flat cobalt sky.

But hanging next to it is a stunning earlier print. Its Fuji slopes fade
from pale yellow to ruddy brown, breathing to life with the warm glow of
a morning sun and stepping off the page against a subtly vanishing,
cloud-streaked azure backdrop.

Hokusai was also an accomplished painter as shown in such pieces as
"Gathering Shellfish at Ebb-tide." Women and children, painted in
traditional Japanese style, dig in the muddy tidal flat against a
three-dimensional coastline and partly obscured Fuji that are given
depth and realism by Hokusai's mastery of Western painting techniques.

The museum also showcases Hokusai's often overlooked role as a
grandfather of the modern comic book.

Hokusai cranked out 15 volumes of manga sketches, featuring everyday
vignettes -- often humorous -- of fish mongers, rice farmers, city
merchants and children at play. He even published a book teaching
aspiring fans how to draw like him.

"Hokusai is perhaps the foremost Japanese artist ever," said David
Caplan, a former board member of the Japan Ukiyoe Society who has
collected and sold woodblock prints since 1968 as owner of Tokyo's Mita
Arts Gallery.

"The design, the placement, the humanity. It's all there." (AP)

http://mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp/national/news/20051202p2a00m0et014000c.html

 

 

__________________

with kind regards,

Matthias Arnold
(Art-Eastasia list)

http://www.chinaresource.org
http://www.fluktor.de

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