Hokusai (1760–1849,) fully Katsushika Hokusai, professionally professional names Shunro, Sori, Kako, Taito, Gakyojin, Iitsu, and Manji, was a Japanese painter, wood engraver, and printmaker. A leading artist of the Ukiyo-e school, he depicted aspects of Japanese everyday life in his woodcuts and strongly influenced European impressionist artists.
Born in Edo (modern Tokyo,) Hokusai was apprenticed to a wood engraver under whom he mastered the conventional surimono (commemorative brush paintings) and book illustrations. He soon abandoned the traditional styles of engraving for the colored woodcut designs of the Ukiyo-e (‘pictures of the floating world’) school, which treated commonplace subjects—including dragons, deities, poets, wrestlers—in an expressionist manner, and of which he became the acknowledged master.
Hokusai’s 15 volumes of Manga (or Random Sketches) depict most facets of Japanese life—real and imaginary figures and animals, plants and natural scenes, landscapes and seascapes, dragons, poets, and deities.
Hokusai’s best-known works are his landscapes, an innovation to the Ukiyo-e movement. His Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (c.1826–33,) including the famous “Great Wave,” marked the pinnacle in the history of the Japanese landscape print. His work greatly influenced impressionism and art nouveau, action figures, and graphic narratives.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Hokusai
If heaven had granted me five more years, I could have become a real painter.
—Hokusai
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