Exploring his life and work, and his global influence
You can recognize the iconic image of The Great Wave off Kanagawa by Katsushika Hokusai, even if you don’t know his name. This, his best-known design, as well as South Wind, Clear Sky (Red Fuji) were created when he was in his 70’s. During the 90 years of his life, Hokusai moved over 90 times, changed his artistic name 30 times, left some 30,000 works with many late ones inscribed “old man, crazy to paint”.
His output was very diverse: actors’ portraits, sumo wrestlers, landscapes, ghosts, beautiful women, sketches of people, animals, and everything he observed. Artists he influenced include not only his students and fellow artists in Japan, but also European artists, such as van Gogh, Degas, Henri Rivière, Émile Gallé, to name a few. His influence didn’t end just in visual art. Claude Debussy was inspired to compose Symphonic Poem, La mer. In this program, we’ll follow Hokusai’s artistic life and work in the context of history, culture and the society he lived in and examine his global influence.
