Katsushika Hokusai and *Fugaku Sanjūrokkei* — The Landscape Revolution Past 70

Who Was Hokusai?

Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849) is the most multifaceted painter in ukiyo-e history. He lived to 90 years, changed his name over 30 times, moved over 30 times, and is said to have left over 30,000 works. Among them are:

• Actor prints (as Katsukawa Shunrō, in his youth)
• Bijin-ga (as Katsushika Hokusai, middle period)
• Kyōka picture-books (several hundred)
• Landscape painting Fugaku Sanjūrokkei (representative work after 70)
• Hokusai Manga (picture handbook, 15 volumes)
• Hand-painted works (late years)

That is, Hokusai went beyond the frame of “ukiyo-e master,” to be a rare figure positioned as a painter in Japanese and world art history. His representative work Fugaku Sanjūrokkei was produced after he had passed 70.

Life — A 90-Year Sprint

Childhood (1760-1778)

• Born on September 23, 1760, at Honjo Waridashi (present-day Kamezawa, Sumida-ku), Edo
• Adopted into the family of Nakajima Ise, mirror-maker to the shogunate
• Childhood name Tokitarō, later Tetsuzō
• Some theories say his real father was a low-ranking samurai; origins are not clear

Katsukawa Shunshō’s Studio (1778-1794)

• 1778 (age 19), entered the studio of Katsukawa Shunshō
• Painted actor prints under the name Katsukawa Shunrō
• 15 years in the Shunshō line, doing actor prints and kusa-zōshi illustrations
• 1794, expelled from the school (various theories) — the road to independence

Among the disciples of Katsukawa Shunshō, treated in the previous article, the one who would later become greatest is Hokusai. Shunshō’s technique of the similitude actor print becomes the ground for Hokusai’s ability to draw and distinguish face and body.

Independence — Wanderings of Names (1795-1810)

Leaving the Katsukawa school, Hokusai changes his art name one after another:

• 1795, “Sōri” (succeeding Tawaraya Sōri of the Rinpa school)
• 1798, “Hokusai Tokimasa”
• 1805, “Katsushika Hokusai” (his most famous name)

During this time, he absorbs every school of painting by self-study — the Kanō school, the Sumiyoshi school, Western-style painting (ranga), Chinese painting (Nanpin school), and so on. Hokusai himself in the postscript of Fugaku Hyakkei reflects:

From the age of six I had a habit of copying the shapes of things. Around 50, though I produced many pictures, what I painted before 70 was really not worth taking. At 73 I began to grasp somewhat the skeleton of birds, beasts, insects, and fish, and the growth of grasses and trees. Therefore at 86 I shall have advanced yet more; at 90 I shall have penetrated their inner meaning; and by 100 I shall be truly wonderful. And at 110, every dot, every stroke shall be as if alive.

“What I painted before 70 is not worth taking” — this self-evaluation is a thought that pierces Hokusai’s life.

Middle Period (1810-1830)

• Around 1812, began producing the picture handbook Hokusai Manga in Nagoya (detailed in the next article)
• 1810-1830, active in kyōka picture-books, hand-painted works, and gesaku illustrations
• Worked broadly with publishers who succeeded Tsutaya

The Age of Fugaku Sanjūrokkei (1831-1834)

• 1831 (Tenpō 2, at age 72), publisher Nishimuraya Yohachi begins publication of Fugaku Sanjūrokkei
• All 46 pictures are complete by 1834 (initially 36, expanded by 10 due to popularity)
• The representative work at 73-74

This becomes the work that decides Hokusai’s world evaluation.

Late Years (1834-1849)

• 1834, publishes Fugaku Hyakkei (picture handbook, 3 volumes, over 100 pictures)
• May 10, 1849, dies at 89
• Death poem: “Hitodama de yuku kisanji ya natsu no hara” (=As a soul, I go wandering freely across the summer plain)

He lamented until his death that “if I could live 5 more years I could become a true painter.” The pride and self-questioning of a 90-year-old painter.

Fugaku Sanjūrokkei — Composition of All 46 Pictures

Fugaku Sanjūrokkei is a large-format horizontal landscape series published from 1831 to 1834. All 46 pictures (initial 36 + 10 added).

Composition

• Omote-Fuji (Front Fuji) — views from the south side of Fuji (Shizuoka side)
• Ura-Fuji (Back Fuji) — the added portion. Views from the north side (Yamanashi side)
• Each picture shows Fuji, but the main character is not Fuji — it is the foreground landscape and figures
• Fuji appears as a small far element

This is fundamentally different from earlier landscape painting. Many pictures of Mount Fuji had been made in Edo era, but:

• Conventional: Fuji the main, foreground a supplement
• Hokusai: The foreground life and nature the main, Fuji far

That is, Hokusai painted “a Fuji within a landscape,” not “a landscape with Fuji.” This connects directly to the sense of space of modern painting.

Technical Innovations

1. Use of Bero-ai (Prussian Blue)

In the 1830s, the synthetic pigment Prussian Blue (called “Bero-ai” in Japan), imported via the Netherlands, became available in Edo. Hokusai used it in great quantity:

• Brighter and more fade-resistant than the earlier plant-based indigo
• Usable for deep blue in sky, sea, and distant scenery
• The waves of Kanagawa Oki Namiura and the sky of Gaifū Kaisei owe their effect to Bero-ai

The “Hokusai Blue” that characterizes the Fugaku Sanjūrokkei series depends on this imported-pigment innovation.

2. Experiments in Perspective

Hokusai had absorbed Western perspective (linear perspective) by self-study. In Fugaku Sanjūrokkei:

• Compositions conscious of a vanishing point
• A 3-layer structure of foreground (large) - middle - far (small)
• A contrast of extreme close-up (foreground made huge) and extremely small far (Fuji)

Establishing a uniquely Japanese sense of perspective different from Western painting.

3. Cutting the Dynamic Moment

• The instant the wave breaks (Kanagawa Oki Namiura)
• The moment a fan flies in the wind (Sunshū Ejiri)
• The moment lightning strikes (Sanka Hakuu)

Before the invention of photography, he realized in painting the sense of “stopping the moment of motion.”

Representative Works — Selected from the 46

Kanagawa Oki Namiura (Great Wave off Kanagawa)

Hokusai’s most famous work, and the best-known piece of Japanese art in the world.

• A huge wave on the verge of breaking
• Three oshiokuri-bune (delivery boats) in the wave
• Mount Fuji small among the waves
• Wave spray shaped like fingers, clutching the sky

Today it is the motif of the wave emoji 🌊, used on books, ads, and product packages worldwide. Debussy used it on the cover of the score of his symphonic poem La Mer in the 20th century.

Gaifū Kaisei — Known as “Red Fuji”

• On a fine morning, a moment when Fuji is dyed red by a southern wind
• Contrast of the blue sky, clouds, foothill green, and the red of Fuji
• A rare picture with Fuji as the main character
• In the 20th century, repeatedly used as an image of Fuji, e.g. in JR Tōkai commercials

Sanka Hakuu

• Under clear sky at Fuji, only the base has a thunderstorm
• The peak in cloudless blue, the foothills in thunderclouds and lightning
• Visualization of Fuji as a huge meteorological boundary
• Representative of Hokusai’s depiction of atmosphere

Tōkaidō Ejiri Tago no Ura Ryakuzu

• Fuji seen from Tago Bay, Shizuoka
• A scene of travel — the highway post town and the sea
• Symbolizing the travel culture of the Edo era with the Tōkaidō and Fuji

Kōshū Inumezawa

• A river and a bridge in the mountains
• Fuji as a distant far view among the mountains
• Representative of Hokusai’s Fuji within a landscape

The Subject “Fuji”

Reasons Hokusai depicted Fuji throughout his life:

1. The Rise of Fuji Belief

From the mid Edo era onward, Fujikō (folk-religious associations of Fuji faith) became a great fad in Edo. There was high demand for Fuji-climbing and pictures of Fuji. Hokusai’s Fugaku Sanjūrokkei was a product responding to this demand.

2. Fuji Visible from Edo

From the higher ground of central Edo, Fuji is visible. For Edo people, Fuji was both a daily landscape and a sacred far view.

3. Hokusai’s Personal Thought

In his late years, Hokusai is said to have seen Fuji as a symbol of immortality, long life, and infinity. In the text of Fugaku Hyakkei, he also lauds Fuji as “Fuji (不二)” (=one and only, without a second).

Japonisme — Shock to the World

Hokusai’s Fugaku Sanjūrokkei delivered a shock to the European art world in the late 19th century:

Van Gogh (1853-1890)

• Collected many Hokusai prints (mentioned in letters to his brother Theo)
• The swirling sky of Starry Night is a direct influence of Hokusai’s waves
• Ukiyo-e are drawn into the background of Portrait of Père Tanguy

Monet (1840-1926)

• Absorbed the spatial sense of landscape painting from Hokusai’s Fugaku Sanjūrokkei
• A Japanese bridge and ukiyo-e collection at his home in Giverny
• Influence on the composition and color of the Water Lilies series

Debussy (1862-1918)

• Used a passage of Kanagawa Oki Namiura on the first-edition score cover of the symphonic poem La Mer (1905)
• A symbol of East-West fusion in music and painting

Today

• The name Hokusai is known worldwide as “Hokusai”
• Great collections at the British Museum, the Metropolitan Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston
• In 2011, when Mount Fuji was inscribed as a World Heritage site, “the role Hokusai played in forming the image of Fuji in Japanese culture” was mentioned

Hokusai’s Words and Life Attitude

Hokusai’s famous self-recognition, left in the Fugaku Hyakkei:

From the age of six I had a habit of copying the shapes of things. What I painted before 70 is really not worth taking. At 73 I began to grasp somewhat the skeleton of birds, beasts, insects, and fish, and the growth of grasses and trees. At 90 I shall have penetrated their inner meaning; and by 100 I shall be truly wonderful.

This is the thought that “painting improves over a lifetime.” Hokusai’s attitude of trying new techniques until just before 90 is a universal message that reaches to modern artists and creators.

From This Article to the Next

Alongside Fugaku Sanjūrokkei, Hokusai left the massive picture handbook Hokusai Manga. Fifteen volumes, over 4,000 figures — an encyclopedic work drawing everything of Edo: humans, animals, plants, architecture, ghosts, combat, tools of daily life. It is also positioned as a source of 20th-century Japanese “manga.” The next article traces the Hokusai Manga.