hokusai under the great wave of kanagawa Flashcards
mount fuji context
national icon, people were religiously devoted to it
said to become the focus of ‘fuji cults’
fuji cults would go on pilgrammages up it- origional purchasers of print made pilgramme=gest
hokusai context
Hokusai began painting when he was six years old. At age twelve, his father sent him to work at a booksellers.
At sixteen, he was apprenticed as an engraver and spent three years learning the trade.
At the same time he began to produce his own illustrations.
*At eighteen he was accepted as an apprentice to Katsukawa Shunshō, one of the foremost ukiyo-e artists of the time.
*In 1804 he became famous as an artist when, during a festival in Edo (now Tokyo), he completed a 240m² painting of a Buddhist monk named Daruma.
He lived in poverty for his early years but eventually became a court painter.
*Hokusai was a prolific writer (riddles, light verse, fiction), and wrote a treatise on colour when he was 89.
*In the late 1820s he had a stroke and taught himself to draw again.
*He produced the Thirty-Six Views after the death of his wife and loss of all his money due to his grandson’s gambling.
when and why did he produce the 36 views of Mount Fuji
*He produced the Thirty-Six Views after the death of his wife and loss of all his money due to his grandson’s gambling.
which ukiyo-e artist was hokusai an apprentice to
*At eighteen he was accepted as an apprentice to Katsukawa Shunshō, one of the foremost ukiyo-e artists of the time.
what evidences hokasai’s interest in colour
wrote a treatise on colour when he was 89.
what did mount fuji mean to Hokusai
became a symbol of longevity of age to him
why did he lose all his money
loss of all his money due to his grandson’s gambling.
what collection is this work a part of
Thirty-Six Views of Mt. Fuji
large’ sheet colour woodblock series of Thirty-Six Views of Mt Fuji (1830 – 1833) was the first of his print series of 1830s, and the Great Wave is the most famous in the series.
The Thirty-Six Views series was a synthesis of all he had learned up until that point, including recent imports of European techniques and materials
*After the Thirty-Six Views, in 1834, Hokusai launched the first volume of his greatest illustrated book, One Hundred Views of Mt Fuji
the prints show how mount fuji varies from place to place
genre of art
*It is an example of ‘Ukiyo-e’: a genre of art which flourished in Japan, particularly in Edo (modern Tokyo), from the 17th - 19th centuries and translates as pictures of the ‘floating world.’
isolationist japan context
had been closed to foreign travel since 1630s
1720 ban lifted on importing chinese translations of european books and certain trade
materials and techniques
-prussian blue pigment used (shows hokusais readiness to use eurpoean ideas)
woodblock print, thousands of prints made (was prefered method of art in japan in 1800s)
subject matter
view of mount fuji (part of a series of colour prints of fuji by Hokusai)
huge wave over 3 small skiffs and crouching oarsman in seascape
looks back on Japan
plunging breaker wave is repeated by a small cresting wave below which mirrors mount fuji sillouhete
nature much larger than man
what were the oarsmen doing
headed out to sea to meet fishing fleet
The oarsmen crouch forwards, ready to battle heroically with the elemental power of the ocean.
where are the boats presumably going
*Presumably they are headed out to sea to meet the fishing fleet and the viewpoint is looking back towards the land of Japan.
but They are heading directly into a great storm wave out at sea off Kanagawa.
how are the boats depicted
A huge wave threatens three small skiffs and their oarsmen in this seascape. Three fishing boats are caught by the forces of the sea – one gliding down a wave, one wallowing in the trough, one struggling up the next slope.
what type of boat are the skiffs
*The narrow boats are ‘oshiokuri-bune’ (high speed skiffs) used to take the spring catch of bonito (a type of fish) to Edo’s fish market.
what type of wave is shown
a ‘plunging breaker’
32 – 39 ft tall
the wave is mirrored by a small cresting wave (all links back to iconic sillouhete of mt fuji)
how is space and depth explored and how is this important
Hokusai’s exploration of ‘deep space’ with a low horizon line here reveals his interest in the lessons of European art, probably learnt through the work of Shiba Kōkan (1747-1818) the artist who was its strongest champion at the time.
we see little midgroumd
european elements
-low horizon line
how is the sillouhete of Mount Fuji mirrored
mirrored by plunging breaker wave and smaller cresting wave
how is the sea given animalistic intent
claw like foaming evokes violent movement and gives sea animalistic intent
how do we get a sense of the sublime
natures scale in much larger and its violence is accentuated by foaming claws
water is given dominance over earth as fuji is dwarfed
how does hokusai add a comical element
spray of wave looks like snow falling on mountain
viewpoint
no footing as a viewer, suggests viewer is also in a boat and in danger emphasising the vunerability of humanity
Low and central – emphasising the vulnerability of humans in the face of the huge power of nature.
