Hokusai: Beyond the Great Wave
The star of the
show was obviously “The Great Wave” but it put this famous and much mimicked
picture into the context of the rest of this work. The picture was published in
1831 when he was in his early 70s.
He trained as a
woodblock maker in his teens and in his 40s and 50s became well known as an
illustrator for fiction, working on a series of popular books called Strange
Tales and there were lovely examples of this work.
The wave itself
was one of a series 36 views of Mount Fuji using European deep perspective. In
Eastern art perspective was shown by distant objects being placed high up in
the frame but in a series of prints he did for the British East India Company
he started to experiment with Western artists ideas using a low vanishing point
and light and shade to give depth. I was also fascinated to see he imported
Prussian Blue from Europe. I found it ironic that artists like Van Gogh and the
Impressionists were being influenced by Japanese prints when the great Hokusai
was importing ideas from Europe.
The picture
itself is beautiful and I’d never seen that the mountain appeared in the arch
formed by the water. It was nice to see it shown with the other views to give
it context. There were 8000 impressions made of it which sold for about the
cost of two bowls of noodles.
In the later
works I loved some beautiful flower
prints of brightly coloured works against blue or dark backgrounds, very like
Van Gogh’s picture of blossom against sky. The precision of the colour in the
prints is stunning. Also a festival cart with ceiling panels decorated by him
including some western images such as a cherub.
Closes on 13
August 2017
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