"The Great Picture Book of Everything" by Katsushika Hokusai
British Museum Collection
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15m
For almost 200 years the Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849) has been astonishing the world with his famous colour woodblock print, Under the Wave off Kanagawa (1831), popularly called The Great Wave. Hokusai was 72 when he designed this print and had already enjoyed success for most of his career. Even so, he never rested on his laurels.
Following the success of The Great Wave and many other prints in the early 1830s, he continued to paint and draw, always seeking new ways to translate a ceaseless flow of ideas into ever more inventive compositions and brushwork.
By the end of his life, Hokusai had produced thousands of prints and paintings, and designed illustrations for nearly 270 books. He was passionate about drawing until the very end of his life, as he revealed in his celebrated last words, '…if only heaven would grant me five more years, then I would become a true artist.' Thanks to the diligent research of Hokusai's first biographer, Iijima Kyoshin (1841–1901), we know more about the master than most other artists of his time, but there are still discoveries to be made.
A case in point is the British Museum's recent rediscovery of one of Hokusai's important late works, a group of more than 100 rare, finished drawings that Hokusai prepared for a picture-encyclopedia titled The Great Picture Book of Everything (Banmotsu ehon daizen), produced in the 1820s–40s.
Cast: Alfred Haft (Curator)
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