Hokusai and His Age: Ukiyo-Painting, Printmaking and Book Illustration in Late Edo Japan

by Calza, Gian Carlo

• ISBN13: 9789074822572
• ISBN10: 9074822576
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-08-22
• Publisher: Brill Academic Pub

Summary

This profusely illustrated volume presents groundbreaking scholarship on the Ukiyo-e artist Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849) and his immediate artistic and literary circles. Achieving worldwide renown for his dramatic landscape print series, such as the "Thirty-six Views of Mt. Fuji", Hokusai also excelled in book illustrations, erotica, and privately commissioned woodcuts called "surimono". Aspects of the artist's innovative and novel approach to the graphic arts are discussed in the first half of this volume. Less well known, Hokusai was a highly accomplished painter who oversaw a studio of several close pupils, including his daughter Ôi, who often worked in a style closely resembling his own. The study of Hokusai's corpus of paintings thus raises many complex issues of authorship, dating and authenticity -- further complicated by the abundant production of forgeries both during and after his lifetime. An appendix of recognized Hokuzai seals helps further clarify this aspect of the artist's work. The distinguished roster of contributors includes: Asano Shugo, Gian Carlo Calza, John T. Carpenter, Timothy T. Clark, Doris Croissant, Kobayashi Tadashi, Kubota Kazuhiro Roger Keyes, Matsudaira Susumu, Matthi Forrer, Naito Masato, David Pollack, John M. Rosenfield, Timon Screech, Segi Shin'ichi, Henry D. Smith II, and Tsuji Nobuo. The publication is sponsored by the International Hokusai Research Centre at the University of Venice and the Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures (SISJAC), London and Norwich.

Table of Contents

The dragon and the goddess : using prints to date, identify and illuminate Hokusai's early paintings	p. 16
Painting and calligraphy of the pleasure quarters : interaction of image and text in Hokusai's early Bijinga	p. 32
Manipulation of form in Hokusai's paintings of beauties	p. 62
Frilly undergarments : some paintings by Hakusai's pupils	p. 76
The floating world in light and shadow : Ukiyoe-e paintings by Hokusai's daughter Oi	p. 92
Concerning the seals on Hokusai's paintings	p. 104
Imitations, copies and fakes after paintings by Hokusai	p. 134
Publishing activities of poetry groups in Edo : early illustrated Kyoka anthologies and Surimono series	p. 158
The 'Surimono artist' Hokusai in the society of Edo Kyoka poets	p. 180
Hokusai and Takahashi Yuichi : changing concepts in still-life painting	p. 216
Hokusai and the blue revolution in Edo prints	p. 234
Manpuku Wagojin - the gods of myriad conjugal delights : an illustrated erotic story by Katsushika Hokusai	p. 270
The anatomy of humour in Hokusai's instruction manuals	p. 298
Hokusai and the microscope	p. 328
The impact of western book illustration on the designs of Hokusai - the key to his originality	p. 340
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