青幻舎 SEIGENSHA Art Publishing

Perhaps best known for his woodblock print The Great Wave off Kanagawa—a masterpiece often ranked alongside Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa—Katsushika Hokusai left behind a remarkable legacy. Through his ninety-year life, he was driven by a fiercely independent and wildly creative spirit, producing an astounding 30,000-plus works, moving house ninety-three times, and adopting over thirty different art names.

This volume focuses on aspects of Hokusai’s work that can be seen as forerunners of key elements, such as special effect lines and visual humor, in today’s manga and anime. Featured works include selections from Crescent Moon: The Adventures of Tametomo, Illustrated New Edition of the Water Margin, and Hokusai Manga, as well as sixteen previously unknown drawings from Daily Sketches for Longevity and Warding Off Evil Spirits published here for the first time. Also presented are all 102 images from the masterpiece woodblock-print series One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji, which Hokusai created late in life under the art name Gakyojin (“The Man Mad about Drawing”). With approximately 400 works, this impressive and absorbing collection offers priceless insight into the oeuvre of a true master.

Ukiyo-e artist Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849) was active in the late Edo period. He entered the Katsukawa school at the age of nineteen, initiating a career that would result in more than 30,000 works over the next seven decades until his death at age ninety. His output encompassed a wide range of media, including ukiyo-e prints and paintings, erotic prints (shunga), drawing manuals, and illustrations for works of popular fiction and poetry. He was widely known during his lifetime and today enjoys a international reputation, as was affirmed in 1998 when he became the only Japanese figure selected for inclusion in The “Life” Millennium: The 100 Most Important Events and People of the Past 1,000 Years.