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Katsushika Hokusai
(1760-1849)
TIMELINE:
Art of the Edo Period
Hokusai, full name Katsushika Hokusai
(1760-1849),
Japanese painter and wood engraver, born in Edo (now Tokyo).
He is considered one of the outstanding figures of the Ukiyo-e,
or "pictures of the floating world" (everyday life),
school of printmaking.
Hokusai entered the studio of his countryman Katsukawa Shunsho
in 1775 and there learned the new, popular technique of
woodcut printmaking. Between 1796 and 1802 he produced
a vast number of book illustrations and color prints,
perhaps as many as 30,000, that drew their inspiration
from the traditions, legends, and lives of the Japanese people.
Hokusai's most typical wood-block prints, silkscreens,
and landscape paintings were done between 1830 and 1840.
The free curved lines characteristic of his style gradually
developed into a series of spirals that imparted the utmost freedom
and grace to his work, as in Raiden, the Spirit of Thunder.
In his late works Hokusai used large, broken strokes and a method
of coloring that imparted a more somber mood to his work,
as in his massive
Group of Workmen Building a Boat.
Among his best-known works are the 13-volume sketchbook
Hokusai manga (begun 1814) and the series of
block prints known as the
Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji
(circa 1826-33).
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