Artists / Japanese Art
葛飾北斎
JP 1760-10-31 ~ 1849-05-10
Japanese ukiyo-e master born in Edo in 1760
Created The Great Wave off Kanagawa and the Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, reshaping both Japanese and European art
His seven-decade pursuit of mastery, with thirty name changes signaling reinvention, models lifelong creative growth
Born in Edo in 1760, Hokusai produced the iconic Great Wave and the Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, works that crossed the ocean to reshape European Impressionism. At ninety he was still striving toward mastery.
What You Can Learn
Hokusai holds vivid lessons. His seven-decade career of relentless reinvention, signaled by thirty name changes, models the value of treating each phase of a career as a fresh start. His Manga volumes, essentially an open-source visual library, anticipated the power of freely distributing content to build influence. And his conviction that mastery requires a lifetime of practice offers a counterweight to the cult of youthful disruption.
Words That Resonate
If heaven had granted me five more years, I could have become a real painter.
七十歳以前に描いたものは実に取るに足りないものばかりだ
From the age of six I had a passion for drawing the forms of things.
天我をして五年の命を保たしめば、真正の画工となるを得べし
At seventy-three I learned a little about the real structure of nature.
画狂老人卍
Life & Legacy
Katsushika Hokusai is the most internationally influential Japanese artist in history. His woodblock print The Great Wave off Kanagawa is one of the most reproduced images in the world, and the Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji series helped ignite the Japonisme movement that reshaped European art from Impressionism onward.
Born in 1760 in the Honjo district of Edo (present-day Tokyo), he was adopted by a mirror-maker and entered the studio of ukiyo-e master Katsukawa Shunsho at eighteen. Over a career spanning seven decades he changed his artistic name roughly thirty times, each change signaling a new phase of exploration.
His early work encompassed actor prints, book illustrations, and surimono (privately commissioned prints). In the 1800s he published the Hokusai Manga, fifteen volumes of sketches covering every conceivable subject, animals, landscapes, craftsmen, ghosts, that served as a pattern book for students and later became one of the principal vehicles for Japanese visual culture reaching Europe.
The Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (actually forty-six prints), published from around 1830, revolutionized landscape art in Japan by combining Western perspective with Japanese compositional boldness. The use of Prussian blue pigment, newly available from Europe, gave the series its distinctive palette.
Hokusai's influence on European art is well documented. When Japanese prints reached Paris in the 1860s, Monet, Degas, Van Gogh, and Whistler absorbed their flat color, bold cropping, and asymmetrical composition. The Impressionists' embrace of Japanese aesthetics was a turning point in Western art, and Hokusai was its single most important catalyst.
He remained productive into extreme old age, producing the series One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji and powerful brush paintings of animals and mythological subjects. He died on May 10, 1849, at eighty-eight, reportedly whispering that he needed just five more years.
Expert Perspective
Hokusai is the most internationally influential Japanese artist, whose Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji combined Western perspective with Japanese boldness. The Great Wave is one of the most reproduced images in history. The Hokusai Manga served as a visual encyclopedia. His work catalyzed Japonisme in Europe, directly influencing Monet, Degas, and Van Gogh.