Nishimuraya Yohachi, one of the leading publishers of woodblock prints in late eighteenth century Japan, who would later publish Hokusai’s legendary series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, commissioned him to produce a series of prints under the title Newly Published Perspective Pictures (c. 1787). Among other designs, the book includes the unusual print One Hundred Ghost Stories in a Haunted House. The subject is taken from a previous Toyoharu print, though Hokusai’s depiction of a haunted house proves a far more terrifying spectacle, as numerous ghosts invade the house from all directions, even infesting its roof. A popular theme of contemporary storytelling, ghosts, demons and the supernatural frequently appear in Japanese literature until the present day. A much-loved story-telling parlour game of the Edo period was the ‘One Hundred Ghost Stories in a Haunted House’. Participants would gather after sunset in a room lit by a hundred lamps. After story was completed, a lamp was blown out. As the room gradually darkened, the tension would rise; when the final story was completed and the final lamp extinguished, it was said that a supernatural phenomenon would occur.
In the following print, the final light has been extinguished, unleashing havoc upon the members of the opulent mansion. We can see a group of young men hiding and horrified by the attack of the ghosts. The macabre impression of the print is conjured by the use of fantastic demons, with reptile and rodent-like features, while the off-key shade of yellow instils a sickly tone. Eager to exploit the methods learned by Toyoharu’s style, Hokusai introduces two vanishing points, providing more depth to the gruesome scene. The first vanishing point leads through the avenue to the left of the image, while the second appears to the right, glimpsed through the house’s open doors.
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Toyoharu’s depiction of ‘One Hundred Ghost Stories in a Haunted House’
‘A Perspective View of French Churches in Holland, actually based on a print of the Roman Forum’ by Utagawa Toyoharu, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, c. 1770. Toyoharu’s use of a Western perspective was a rare convention in Japanese art at the time and would have an important impact on the development of Hokusai’s style.
Contemporary portrait of Hokusai’s great publisher, Nishimura Yohachi
The Toilet
During his time in Shunsho’s studio, Hokusai married his first wife, about whom very little is known, except that she died in the early 1790’s. The artist reportedly married again in 1797, although this second wife also died after a short time. He fathered two sons and three daughters, and his youngest daughter, Katsushika Oi, also became an artist. However, precise information concerning the artist’s personal life remains sadly elusive, with few surviving documents being available to art historians.
In 1792, close to the time of Shunsho’s death, Hokusai actively sought instruction outside the Katsukawa school. For a brief period, he studied under the academic painter Kano Yüsen (1778-1815), as well as the Sumiyoshi school painter Sumiyoshi Hiroyuki (1755-1811) and Tsutsumi Torin III. Hokusai would now only continue to use the name Shunro for another year. It was this formative time that marked a departure both in style and in the type of work that Hokusai would produce. Turning away from the world of commercial prints of kabuki actors and beauties, he concentrated on the lucrative market of surimono designs. These high-end productions were only printed for private circulation in small print runs. Surimono artworks were delineated with finer detail, demanding much more labour, while employing the use of costly materials, including special embossing effects and metallic powders. Such prints generally had a small format, often c. 8” × 7”, and the relief carving of the Kanji characters took a great deal of technical skill. Examples of commonly printed surimono include invitations to exclusive events, personalised calendars, programmes for poetry readings and New Year’s greeting cards. These works were usually commissioned by members of the prosperous merchant class, now enjoying a time of increased wealth and leisure.
The beautiful young ladies of Hokusai’s designs also went through a radical change. Absent are the round-jawed, darker browed females of his early period, replaced with elegant ladies with angular, narrow and elongated features, enhanced by high foreheads. A popular surimono produced during this period is The Toilet (1796), a surviving print of which is housed today in the British Museum. Yet another work that reveals Hokusai’s fondness for mischievous humour, the design portrays a slender young lady, naked to the waist, as she bathes herself before a mirror. In an act of vanity, the girl peers into the looking glass, only to be greeted by the leering reflection of an Otafuku mask hanging up behind her. Otafuku was well-known as the goddess of mirth and was usually associated with happiness, fertility and licentious humour. In Japanese tradition, a mask of Otafuku would be hung up in a home or place of business in order to bring prosperity. The inclusion of the mirror gives the scene a voyeuristic dimension, as we are encouraged to ridicule the girl’s vanity and her resulting reproof.
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A later surimono by Hokusai, an invitation for a poetry recital, c. 1820
Sudden Rain at the New Yanagi Bridge, the Rainbow at Otakegura
In the first few years of the 1800’s, Hokusai produced several series of prints in different formats, portraying landscapes around Edo and the surrounding area. These works were largely inspired by copperplate engravings from Holland, echoing their use of shading and handling of line. Hokusai also borrowed the Western-style of depicting trompe-l’œil frames, bringing three-dimensionality to his designs. The artist’s increasing interest in Western pictorial techniques would help the development of his art, leading up to the masterpieces of his mature years. He also changed his choice of subjects, moving away from the images of courtesans and actors that were more traditional subjects. Instead, his art focused on landscapes and images of the daily life of Japanese people, exploring a range of social levels. This change of subject was a breakthrough in ukiyo-e and in the progress of Hokusai’s career.
In 1796, Hokusai began signing his designs as Hokusai Sdri, introducing for the first time the name by which he is famous today. In c. 1805 he produced a new series titled Picture Book: Both Banks of the Sumida River at a Glance, which was published by Maekawa Zenbei. Comprised of three volumes, the series presents a continuous panoramic composition, similar to the impression of using a hand scroll to view the illustrations. Although the volumes were bound, so that only two facing prints could be viewed at once, the continuity of the scenes is clearly maintained through the cropping of objects and figures, which are continued on the edges of consecutive pages. The scenes depict daily life throughout the four seasons, set against the backdrop of Edo’s arterial waterway. The series is celebrated for the artist’s inimitable narrative, combining human drama with picturesque landscapes. The first volume opens with a scene by Mount Fuji on New Year’s Day, while the final volume culminates at the end of the year, with lively scenes in the Yoshiwara pleasure district.
Of particular note is a scene from the second volume, titled Sudden Rain at the New Yanagi Bridge, the Rainbow at Otakegura, featuring a variety of figures crossing a wooden bridge, while shielding themselves with umbrellas against the rain. Across the waterway, on another bridge, the same is happening to the other pedestrians, as they try to navigate through the inclement weather. The ‘rainbow’ of the title is a visual pun on the arched Okura Bridge, located on the east side of the river at Otakegura. This was an important wooded area that often supplied timber for official use in Edo. At once the artist conjures the amusing drama of a timeless occurrence, where man is subjected to the whim of nature. The scene teems with realistic detail: a woven mat, vegetable-filled shopping bags and a cautious pedestrian peeping back under the umbrella, fearing that the person behind will walk blindly into her — all of these details transport us back to a single spontaneous moment of city life.
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New Yanagi Bridge today
Sonobe Saemon Yoritane
The early 1800’s witnessed Hokusai’s association with the Tawaraya School and the adoption of the name ‘Tawaraya Sori’. In due course, he passed his name on to a pupil and set out as an independent artist, free from any ties to a school for the first time, adopting the name Hokusai Tomisa. Meanwhile, Hokusai continued to develop his use of ukiyo-e for purposes other than portraiture. He then adopted the name Katsushika Hokusai, under which he would be most widely known in the course of art history. ‘Katsushika’ refers to the part of Edo where he was born and ‘Hokusai’ translates as ‘north studio’.
Over the subsequent decade, he became increasingly famous, both due to his artwork and his flair for self-promotion. During an Edo festival in 1804, he famously used a broom and buckets full of ink in order to produce a portrait of the Buddhist priest Daruma; the image was reported to have been 600 feet long. Another story tells how he was summoned to the court of the Shogun Ienari and challenged to compete with a rival artist renowned for his more traditional brush stroke painting. In front of the Shogun, Hokusai created an image of a blue curve on paper. He then took a chicken, whose feet had been dipped in red paint, and chased it across the composition. He described the painting to the Shogun as a landscape showing the Tatsuta River, with the red maple leaves floating in its waters. Of course, the legend tells that he duly won the competition.
During this time, Hokusai turned to a new mass-produced format in order to disseminate his work to a larger audience. It was a new type of novel named yomihon (‘books for reading’, as opposed to picture books), which featured a single narrative, spread over several volumes. These tales were often adapted from well-known Chinese stories; however, what marked them out as different from other fictional publications was their literary, even at times didactic style, offering a more challenging read. From the mid-eighteenth century, education levels were markedly increasing, witnessing the emergence of several important writer-illustrator partnerships, including the celebrated productions of Hokusai and Takizawa Bakin (1767-1848).
Takizawa Bakin was a late Japanese Edo period gesaku author, best known for works such as The Chronicles of the Eight Dog Heroes of the Satomi Clan of Nanso and Strange Tales of the Crescent Moon. Both are outstanding examples of nineteenth-century yomihon. This format was not without its challenges for the skilled and ambitious illustrator: each volume contained only a handful of illustrations in comparison to other works of fiction and they were often produced in monochrome, leaving little scope for the artist to showcase his skills. Nonetheless, the employing of skilled artists for such publications reveals the growing demand for yomihon, stressing the importance of well-designed illustrations to support text-heavy books. Over time, yomihon would become an important source of income for the artist and he continued to produce work in the format for the rest of his life, contributing illustrations to almost 50 different titles.
One of Hokusai’s most noted contributions to the yomihon format was his designs for Snow in the Garden (1807), a six-volume historical adventure novel penned by Bakin. In a large double-page illustration in the first volume, Hokusai portrays the samurai Sonobe Saemon Yoritane in battle with a hideous spider beast. The warrior is armed with a flaming torch, with which he attacks his foe. Hokusai’s bold depiction of the assault, beginning on the right page and directly spilling into the left, gives the scene a spontaneous, thrilling quality, complimenting Bakin’s prose description. The terrifying spider is particularly effective, as it is adorned by the skulls of its victims, ghastly fixed to its legs. The composition reveals Hokusai’s talent for producing figures of vivid imagination, hinting at his high regard for realistic detail. The intricate portrayal of the spider’s anatomy receives much greater attention than was customarily found in illustrations for fictional works. This villain is not merely a creation from the world of fantasy, but is represented with realistic precision, making it more believable and dangerous. Throughout his career as a yomihon illustrator, Hokusai became well known for his compelling portrayals of strange or grotesque figures.
In spite of their successful and lucrative partnership, Hokusai and Bakin eventually fell out over artistic differences, midway through working on their fourth book. The publisher, when presented with the choice of keeping either Hokusai or Bakin on the project, opted for Hokusai, emphasising the importance of illustrations in printed works of the period, and, of course, the growing fame of the illustrator.
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Portrait of Takizawa Bakin by Kunisada, c. 1820
Hokusai Manga
An extraordinary act of nature would be the cause of Hokusai’s next developmental change. In c. 1810 he was out walking one day when he was struck by lightning. He marked the event by taking the name Taito (receiving the Big Dipper), as he regarded the event as a blessing from the North Star, the main reference in his previous name. Hokusai would retain this new name for a decade, before passing it on to a student and adopting yet another guise. The chief occupation of his time practicing under the name of Taito was in the production of numerous edehon publications (drawing manuals). The first volume he produced in this format was Foolish Ono’s Nonsense Picture Dictionary, parodying the renowned poetry textbook Ono Takamura’s Picture Dictionary (1692), published with the intention of teaching aspiring artists how to produce forms from basic Chinese characters.
Edehon manuals were now being produced by most painting schools in Japan, demonstrating how the growing population were in possession of more wealth and time to pursue new interests and hobbies. This edehon format would produce several important training manuals for proficient artists. As Hokusai lacked a large studio of assistants, and so few pupils that would continue his name for posterity, drawing manuals were no doubt an alluring choice of media, allowing him to eternalise his style for countless future admirers.
Hokusai Manga would in time be regarded as Hokusai’s most successful and influential edehon project, original published under the title Transmitting the Essence and Enlightening the Hand: Random Drawings by Hokusai. Eventually, this series would run up to 15 volumes, released over nearly 65 years, from 1814 to 1878. The last three books were published posthumously, while the first two mostly comprised previously published designs. The word manga should be understood as “random pictures” or “whimsical pictures” and should not be associated with today’s understanding of modern manga books, which are usually illustrated fictional works concerning a single narrative.
According to the preface of Hokusai Manga, the idea for publishing 300 study-like drawings came to Hokusai while visiting his student Gekkotei Bokusen in Nagoya and so the first few volumes were issued by a local publisher, Eirakuya Toshiro, rather than a standard publisher in Edo. Under Bokusen’s assistance, as well as several other important students, the series eventually amassed over 4,000 drawings, concerning a vast range of subjects, from beautiful scenes of nature to fantastic and supernatural creations, sourced from the artist’s untiring imagination. The sketchy and spontaneous nature of the scenes would later inform the artist’s important work on the celebrated series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji. The Hokusai Manga illustrations are noted for their keen and sympathetic perception of the daily lives of ordinary people, offering realistic compositions of intense originality, admired across Japan, and in time the world, for their charming lyricism and light humour. Although many images in the series appear as standard copybook models, their authentic and precise rendering of the natural world and its people highlights Hokusai’s incredible sensitivity and the unbounded curiosity he had for life itself.
The Hokusai Manga proved to be an extraordinary
success for the artist and the volumes were reprinted many times throughout his life. Indeed, they were the chief source through which many Europeans became acquainted with ukiyo-e art. In the intriguing range of designs of an alien culture, thousands of Europeans saw for the first time realistic depictions of Japan and her people. Philipp Franz Balthasar von Siebold (1796-1866), the German physician, botanist, and traveller, who achieved prominence by his studies of Japanese flora and fauna and the introduction of Western medicine in Japan, brought back to Europe the Hokusai Manga and they were publicly exhibited at his museum from 1837. This international exposure paved the way for the European trend of Japonisme, as many leading avant-garde artists were spellbound by the revolutionary style of art. Claude Monet (1840-1926) commenced his own collection of ukiyo-e, eventually building it up to as many as 250 prints. Édouard Manet, Paul Cézanne, Vincent van Gogh and James Abbott McNeill Whistler are just a few of the major avant-garde artists that would be significantly influenced by Japonisme.
Masters of Art - Katsushika Hokusai Page 2