HOKUSAI, KATSUSHIKA
A deluxe large-format edition of this beautifully illustrated introduction to Katsushika Hokusai, the most prolific artist of Japans Edo period, and master of ukiyo-e images of the floating world.
Hokusai: the blue, foam-crested wave rearing above Mount Fuji; the celebrated volcano idealized and reinvented by the artist in every nuance of view, season and painting; extraordinary bridges, the waterfalls of Japan, the contortions, costumes, gestures the very breath of men, women, peasants, townsmen, warriors, artisans, leaping horses, birds, insects, fish, almost live on the ground on which they are painted the countless imaginative drawings or the lively sketches done on the spot for the Manga, Hokusais record of shapes and forms drawn from life or imagined over time. With a body of work comprising more than 30,000 drawings and paintings, Hokusai (17601849) was the most prolific, varied and indisputably the most creative artist of old Japan. A universal genius in everything that constituted drawing and painting in his time, he practised all genres of ukiyo-e, those images of the floating world, as his contemporaries liked to describe their pleasures and their daily life.
