Katsushika Hokusai
Katsushika Hokusai was a Japanese artist from the Edo period who lived from 1760 to 1849, during Japan’s isolationist period.
Hokusai was born to an artistic family, his father being the mirror maker for the shogun. He started painting at just six years old, likely getting his first instruction from his father (his father painted designs around the mirrors he made).
Hokusai was apprenticed to a woodcarver at 14 years old. In this period, books made from wood-cut blocks were extremely popular. At age 18, Hokusai started learning in the studio of Katsukawa Shunshō, a well-known ukiyo-e artist who was the head of the Katsukawa school and who designed and created woodcuts. By 19 years old, Hokusai began publishing his own wood-block prints, creating images of actors which were a common wood-cut motif.
After the death of his art master, Katsushika Hokusai was soon expelled from the Katsukawa School by Shunshō’ s main pupil, Shunkō, most likely from jealousy. Hokusai turned this unfortunate event into fortune by expanding the subjects he created. Hokusai has said of this time, “What really motivated the development of my artistic style was the embarrassment I suffered at Shunkō’s hands.” From this, Hokusai turned his attention to creating landscapes and scenes from daily life.
Hokusai is most known for his series of woodblocks titled ‘Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji’. This style of Japanese landscapes is part of the Ukiyo-e genre (“pictures of the floating world”) that greatly influenced the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist artists of the late 19th century. He died in 1849 at 89 years of age.
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