Hokusai

Katsushika Hokusai was a Japanese artist of the Edo period, working as a painter and printmaker. He is famous for his woodblock print series *Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji*, which contains the well-known image *The Great Wave off Kanagawa*. Hokusai helped change ukiyo-e from a style that mostly showed courtesans and actors into a wider art form that also depicted landscapes, plants, and animals. His work later influenced European artists like Vincent van Gogh and Claude Monet during the late 19th-century Japonisme trend.

Hokusai created *Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji* because of a travel boom in Japan and his own interest in Mount Fuji. This series, especially *The Great Wave off Kanagawa* and *Fine Wind, Clear Morning*, made him famous in Japan and abroad. Although best known for woodblock prints, he also worked in painting and book illustration. He started as a child and kept improving his style until he died at age 88. Over his long career, he produced more than 30,000 works, including paintings, sketches, prints, and book images. He is considered one of art history's greatest masters due to his innovative compositions and drawing skill.

Hokusai's birth date is unclear but is often given as 31 October 1760. He was born into an artisan family in the Katsushika district of Edo (now Tokyo). His childhood name was Tokitarō. His father was likely Nakajima Ise, a mirror-maker for the shōgun, but Hokusai was not made an heir, so his mother may have been a concubine. He began painting around age six, possibly learning from his father, who painted designs around mirrors. Another account from his niece says he was born in the Warigesui quarter of Honjo district as the third son of Kawamura Ichi Roemon, an artist named Bunsei. His adoptive grandfather supposedly served the Kira clan and was killed by one of the Forty-seven rōnin.

Hokusai used at least thirty names during his life, more than any other major Japanese artist. These name changes often marked shifts in his style and are used to divide his life into periods. At age 12, his father sent him to work in a bookshop and lending library. At 14, he became an apprentice to a woodcarver. At 18, he entered the studio of Katsukawa Shunshō, an ukiyo-e artist and head of the Katsukawa school. Ukiyo-e at that time focused on courtesans and kabuki actors. After a year, Hokusai was named Shunrō by his master, and under that name he published his first prints in 1779, a series of kabuki actor pictures. During his decade in Shunshō's studio, he married his first wife, who died in the early 1790s. He remarried in 1797, but that wife also died soon after. He had two sons and three daughters; his youngest daughter Ei (also called Ōi) became an artist and his assistant. His work *Fireworks in the Cool of Evening at Ryogoku Bridge in Edo* dates from around 1788–89.

After Shunshō died in 1793, Hokusai explored other styles, including European techniques from French and Dutch copper engravings. He was expelled from the Katsukawa school by Shunkō, Shunshō's chief disciple, possibly because he studied at the rival Kanō school. Hokusai said this embarrassment motivated his artistic development. He then changed his subjects, moving away from courtesans and actors to focus on landscapes and everyday life of Japanese people from all social levels. This shift was a breakthrough for ukiyo-e and his career.

In the next period, Hokusai associated with the Tawaraya School and took the name Tawaraya Sōri. He produced private prints for special occasions and illustrations for humorous poetry books. In 1798, he passed his name to a pupil and became an independent artist, adopting the name Hokusai Tomisa. By 1800, he was further expanding ukiyo-e beyond portraiture and took the name Katsushika Hokusai, referring to his birthplace and meaning "north studio."