Many great artists do not live long enough to see their great works inspire or become popular, with the likes of the great writer and poet William Shakespeare whose plays were thought of as mediocre during his lifetime, but now live in infamy. The great Japanese artist, Katsushika Hokusai, got to see the popularity of his works towards the end of his life that allowed him to add onto the already popularized series of prints, of which includes the popular “Great Wave” or “The Great Wave off Kanagawa.” Like many great artists, Hokusai has a long backstory that is important in understanding his art and important in understanding his overall life, and too important to appreciate the art he made. Although Hokusai’s “Great Wave,” is most-known, it is still just as important to look at his other work to get a holistic view of his art and perhaps his messages.
Hokusai, or in his childhood, Tokitarō, was born during the Hōreki period, in either October or November of 1760, to an artisan family in the Katsushika district of Edo, Japan. As known to be believed, Hokusai’s father was Nakajima Ise, a mirror-maker who produced mirrors for the shogun. In terms of his beginning, Hokusai began painting at only age six, having possibly learned this particular art form from his father. This is believed to be because Hokusai’s father’s mirror work also included the painting of designs around said mirrors.
Before getting into his art, though, it is interesting to note that Hokusai was known by at least 30 different names during his lifetime. Of these different names, some of the notable names are as follows: Iitsu, Shunrō, Sōri, Manji, Kakō, Taito, and Gakyōjin. Even though the use of multiple names was a common practice of Japanese artists of the time, the amount of names Hokusai used is much greater than any other Japanese artist. Hokusai's name changes were so frequent, and yet most of the time these changes were in relation to different periods or changes in Hokusai’s artistic production and style, being that these name changes are especially useful in dividing up his life into different artistic periods. In his preteen years, Hokusai was sent by his father to work in a lending library and workshop which was a very popular type of institution in Japanese cities. Here, reading books made from woodcut blocks, or woodblock prints, was a popular avenue of entertainment for the upper and middle classes. Only a few years later, Hokusai would become an apprentice to a wood-carver for the next several years, leading up to his acceptance into the studio of Katsukawa Shunshō. Shunshō “was an artist of ukiyo-e, a style of woodblock prints and paintings that Hokusai would master, and head of the so-called Katsukawa school. Ukiyo-e, as practiced by artists like Shunshō, focused on images of the courtesans and Kabuki actors who were popular in Japan's cities at the time” (“Biography of Katsushika Hokusai”).
Moving forward, perhaps the greatest point to tackle is in Hokusai’s obsession and creation of waves in his works. As Hokusai’s career went over the span of 60 years, from the 1790s up until his death in 1849, he “produced image after image of waves” (Guth). Too, no artist had ever treated this subject, waves, so closely or in such a creative way before. In his works, there are several scenic views of waves, all in the following: waves breaking on the beach at Enoshima, several book depictions of waves, that would be identified and concurrent with “legendary feats of heroism and self-sacrifice,” different styles of waves for the decoration of personal accessories and architectural interiors as seen especially today, artists' instructional manuals with incoming and outgoing waves, depictions of waves in the formal, semiformal, and cursive brush styles (Guth). Hokusai's many and several variations of a single great cresting or crashing wave would capture the public imagination by bringing into an integrated and magnified aesthetic (Fig. 1). Hokusai's waves “commented on a new maritime reality by their singularity, heroic scale, pictorial style, and even their very materiality” (Guth).
To get to the meat and bones of Hokusai’s work, “The Great Wave off Kanagawa,” which was a 19th century woodcut, showcases “oshiokuri-bune,” or that of cargo boats having to navigate their way through a terrifying sea which is within sight of a snow-capped Mt. Fuji (Fig. 2). The particular woodcut is among, if not the best-known work of Japanese art to date. Although, in just the last few years, scientists have deemed the work of art has ben misconceptualized in terms of what the wave actually represent. The great wave itself, which has become pop culture through it being featured as an emoticon, on the likes of t-shirts, and even that of textbooks, the wave is often described as a tsunami.
However, the woodcut’s wave does not fit the image or qualifications of a traditional tsunami, and physicists would argue this point in a 2009 published work. The giant wave depicted in the work, by some estimates, might scale out in real life to over 10 meters over the boats while too in the process of breaking. As seen, the waves of tsunamis break when they are closer to the shore, not anywhere near deep water as the image depicts. With this understanding, then, the woodcut would suggest that other giant waves followed the one depicted; “the primary tsunami waves spread out over long distances” (Ornes). All of this in mind, scientists then proposed that Hokusai’s masterpiece, “The Great Wave off Kanagawa,” is more likely a rogue wave called a “plunging breaker” (Ornes). Especially of the time of composition, rogue waves were only believed in legend, never seen by the human eye, or not recorded in a way that could be used as evidence; never had anyone seen walls of water that came from nowhere and swamped boats without warning, or at least no one had live to tell the tale. However, in recent decades, ocean physicists have documented the waves’ existence and explored natural mechanisms that could plausibly govern rogues. Rogues may result from linear processes, which means the heights of colliding waves sum to the height of the resulting, single wave.
At age 70, Hokusai then began the work on “Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji,” (Fugaku sanjurokkei), in 1830. This woodblock print series would actually come to consist of forty-six views of Mount Fuji, the other scenes bearing Hokusai’s new signature and being printed almost entirely in shades of “Prussian blue.” Hokusai’s notable and famous “Great Wave,” was done in a style which makes it look so realistic, yet there is so much more than meets the eye. As mentioned prior, tsunamis do not behave in the way the wave is depicted by Hokusai. However, again as mentioned, rogue waves actually occur spontaneously and are much larger than any wave close by, which matches up with the image depicted (Fig. 2). Even if the image is not that of a tsunami, tsunamis and rogue waves are both dangerous natural phenomena, “but for ships far out at sea tsunamis do not represent a threat, whereas unpredictable rogue waves do” (Georgescu). With all this said, and all this skepticism, perhaps the absence and mystery of a complete understanding of the underlying physics of the wave and art itself is what makes the piece that much more mysterious, and too allows for more awe and wonder to be had by just looking at the piece.
The next period of Hokusai’s life and work, beginning in 1834, which is when Hokusai began to work under the name of “Gakyō Rōjin Manji,” or “The Old Man Mad About Art.” It was at this time that Hokusai produced “One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji,” another significant landscape series that has left a lasting impact(Fig. 3). In the postscript to this work, Hokusai wrote:
“From around the age of six, I had the habit of sketching from life. I became an artist, and from fifty on began producing works that won some reputation, but nothing I did before the age of seventy was worthy of attention. At seventy-three, I began to grasp the structures of birds and beasts, insects and fish, and of the way plants grow. If I go on trying, I will surely understand them still better by the time I am eighty-six, so that by ninety I will have penetrated to their essential nature. At one hundred, I may well have a positively divine understanding of them, while at one hundred and thirty, forty, or more I will have reached the stage where every dot and every stroke I paint will be alive. May Heaven, that grants long life, give me the chance to prove that this is no lie” (“Biography of Katsushika Hokusai”).
Continuing on, only five years later in 1839, a fire would destroy Hokusai's studio and much of his work. At this time, however, his career began to slow as younger, up in coming artists, such as Andō Hiroshige, became increasingly popular through their art. Nonetheless, Hokusai never stopped his craft, and completed “Ducks in a Stream” at the age of 87, three years before his passing. As Hokusai’s continually sought to produce better work and refine his craft, he said before his death, “If only Heaven will give me just another ten years… Just another five more years, then I could become a real painter” (“Biography of Katsushika Hokusai”).
Hokusai passed on April 18, 1849, and was buried at the Seikyō-ji in Tokyo (Taito Ward).
Overall, Hokusai had a long career, but he produced most of his important work after age 60. His most popular work is the ukiyo-e series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, which was created between 1826 and 1833. It actually consists of 46 prints (10 of them added after publication). In addition, he is responsible for the 1834 One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji (富嶽百景 Fugaku Hyakkei), a work which "is generally considered the masterpiece among his landscape picture books." His ukiyo-e transformed the art form from a style of portraiture focused on the courtesans and actors popular during the Edo Period in Japan's cities into a much broader style of art that focused on landscapes, plants, and animals.