Dialogue du vent et de la mer
Jul. 25th, 2023 07:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yamamanamaI decided I'd make Hokusai: Inspiration and Influence its own entry because there are almost 250 pictures.
Annabeth Rosen - Wave
It’s made from ceramics, not bowling pins.
From a different view.
Peter Soriano - Wave
Inspired by a magnitude 9.1 earthquake and subsequent tsunami and based on the Great Wave and Titian’s The Submersion of the Pharaoh’s Army in the Red Sea. He wanted to evoke the way the wave appears to be grabbing the boats.
Katsushika Hokusai - Fine Wind, Clear Weather
Mt. Fuji colored red by the rising sun on a clear morning in late summer or early autumn.
Totoya Hokkei - Mt. Fuji from the series of Three Lucky Dreams.
The auspicious things to dream about on the New Year are Mt. Fuji, hawks, and eggplants. When I have thoughts about things before bed, my dreams tend to be entirely unrelated. The snow was once bright silver but has now tarnished with time.
Yoshitomo Nara - White Fujiyama Ski Gelände
Nara painted over reproductions of famous prints and then xeroxed them. In this case, he took Red Fuji.
Katsukawa Shunshō - Scenes of Amusment in Spring and Summer
Katsukawa Shunshō - Shakkyō, the Lion Dance
Katsushika Hokusai - Woman from Ohara Carrying Bundles of Firewood
Ohara is a rural area outside of Kyoto.
Katsukawa Shunshō - Actors Ichimura Uzaemon IX as Kudō Suketsune, Ichikawa Yaozō as Soga no Gorō and Sakata Hangorō as Kobayashi Asahina
The hero, in the center, confronts his father’s murderer on the right. I don’t know what the third guy is doing because it’s not in the description. However, you can see Mt. Fuji formed from incense smoke.
Katsushika Hokusai - Actor Sakata Hangorō as a Traveling Priest, actually Chinzei Hachirō Tametomo
The hero is in a graveyard revealing his true identity and holding the skull of his deceased lord, preparing to avenge his lost cause and fallen comrades.
Katsushika Hokusai - Actor Segawa Kikunojō III as the Courtesan Azuma
Katsukawa Shunshō - Actor Ichikawa Danzō in his Dressing Room with Segawa Kijunojō III
By the 1760s, Shunsho drew popular theater stars with their features and not just generic faces.
Katsushika Hokusai - Actors Sawamura Gennosuke I as Ume no Yoshebei and Segawa Michinosuke as Yoshibe’s Wife Komune
???
Utagawa Toyokuni - Actors Segawa Roko IV as Yoshibei’s Wife Komune and Sawamura Gennosuke I as Ume no Yoshebei.
Shiba Kōkan - Dad’s Teahouse in Hiroo
Kōkan went to Nagasaki to study Dutch art.
Katsuhuka Hokusai - The Dutch Picher Lens, Eight Views of Edo
???
Katsukawa Shunshō - The Night Attack at Horikawa
He’d occassionally but rarely use vanishing point perspective. Here, 12th century general Minamoto no Yoshitune confronted their enemies in a mansion in Kyoto. The women in the distance have 18th century hairstyles and clothing. The description says that was meant a joke. Perhaps a comment on Europeans and their tendency to dress bronze age peoples in their clothing.
Kano Yūsen Hironobu - Cranes and Bamboo
Tortoises and Waterfall
Katsushika Hokusai - Interior of a House in the Yoshihara
Tarawaya Sōri - Winter Peony
He died unexpectively and Hokusai took over the school.
Katsushika Hokusai - Peonies and Butterflies
Hokusai rendered the peonies in three distinct ways
Utagawa Toyoharu - Perspective Picture of a Snow-viewing Party
Katsushika Hokusai - The Story of Minamoto Yoshitsune and Jōruri-hime
Here, Joruri-hime is playing the koto and Minamoto is playing the flute. For whatever reason, Yoshitsune himself wears period clothing but everyone else wears Edo fashions.
Katsushika Isai - The Goddess of Itsukushima and the God of the Gion Shrine
Katsushika Isai - An Illustrated Life of Nichiren
These are the finished versions.
Manjirō Hokuga - Tiger in a Thunder Storm
Tigers are paired with dragons. Dragons make the rain while tigers roar and make the wind. Since there are no native tigers in Japan, they have been mythologized and the artists just guessed based on cats, who are basically just small tigers that meow instead of roar, and tiger pelts imported from Korea.
Katsushika Hokusai - Sketch of Figures Prepared for Instructions of a Pupil
Numata Gessai - The Female Captain of the Boat
Some of the students were samurai.
She has shaved eyebrows to indicate that she is married and has children.
Hishikawa Sōri - Courtesan with Child Attendants
Jofū - Woman Holding Child Beneath Willows
Ōsai - Courtesan and Child Attendant Beneath Willows
Kisai - Woman on a Riverboat Dock Beneath Willows
While these three paintings are displayed together, they’re distinct.
Katsushika Hokusai - Nichiren Shōnin Writing on the Waves
To paint spray, Hokusai would put white paint on a brush and then blow on it.
Nichiren, during a storm, wrote the Lotus Sutra on the waves to calm them.
Jofū, Ōsai, Nansai - Picture Album of Hokusai’s Oldest Daughter Jofū.
Katsushika Ōi - Album of the Old Man Crazy About Painting
Katsushika Ōi - Three Women Playing Musical Instruments
His third daughter Oi used a similar style to her father but included more shading.
Manjisai Isshō - Album of Nine Small Paintings
Completely unknown artist but may have been a pupil of Oi and not Katsushika
Katsushika Hokusai II, whomever that is.
Three Women: Geisha
Three Women: Palace Maid
Three Women: Farm Woman
Kerria roses for the geisha, peonies for the palace maid, and narcissus for the country girl.
Manjirō Hokuga - A Young Samuria Punishing a Scoundrel
I love the moon here.
Manjirō Hokuga - The Knowledge of Color
Manjisai Hokusen - Album of Sketches
Katsushika Hokusai (probably) - Album of Miscellaneous Sketches including Designs for Artisans
Katsushika Hokusai - Yoshitsune Jumps Over Eight Boats
Narui Sadao - The Founding of the Jetavana Temple
Narui Sadao - The Founding of the Jetavana Temple
Narui Sadao - The Founding of the Jetavana Temple
Yanagawa Shigenobu II - Mountain Dweller
Yanagawa Shigenobu II - Summer Robe
The print uses indigo, which was and still is used to dye garments, and prussian blue.
Yanagawa Shigenobu II and Shunkōsai Hokushū - Memorial Portait of Actor Arashi Kitsusaburō
depicted in his last great role, the archer Minamoto no Yorimasa, who shot down a monster flying over the palace in Kyoto.
Hōtei Gosei - Shrine in Snow
Teisai Hokuba - Octopus Tentacle
Except they’re techically arms and anyone who’s read City of Saints and Madmen would know that. Since Hokuba died in 1844, he hasn’t read that so that’s his excuse.
Ryūryūko Shinsai - New Year’s Refreshments
Ryūryūko Shinsai - A Bolt of Obi Fabric with Hair Ornaments
Yanagawa Shigenobu I - Tea Utensils and Rolled Scroll Painting
Yanagawa Shigenobu I - Seated Woman with Shamisen and Libretto
Yanagawa Shigenobu I - Hanatsuru-dayū of the Higashi-Ōgiya as the Dragon Princess Oto-hime and Hinaji-dayū of the Higashi-Ōgiya as Tawara Tōda
Hm, apparently 19th century Japan had divorce.
Yashima Gakutei - Shelter from the Rain at Tenpōzan by the Aji River in Osaka
Yashima Gakutei - Pentaptych for the Hisakataya Poety Club: Women’s Gagoku Concert under Cherry Blossoms
Francesco Clemente - Morning
The print looked a lot like a watercolor painting and sparked debate.
Helen Frankenthaler - Cedar Hill
Both artists collaborated with Japanese ukiyo-e printers.
Katshushika Taito II - Goddess Drawing a Bow
Either a Tibetan goddess or a nine-tailed fox who took human form.
Katshushika Taito II - Court Lady and Attendannt Gathering Pine Shoots
Katshushika Taito II, Taigaku - Composite Picture (hanimaze): Swallow and Spider, Branch of Loquat, Calligraphy
Katshushika Taito II - Composite Picture (hanimaze): Monkey Bridge in Moonlight, Calligraphy in Rubbing Style
Katshushika Taito II - Composite Picture (hanimaze): Bats and Moon, Dragon in Clouds, Calligraphy
Katshushika Taito II - Composite Picture (hanimaze): Finches on a Cherry Branch, Rubbing of Calligraphy of Kumagai Naozane, and Morning Glories and Bee
Good thing the titles are so self-explanatory.
Nancy Genn - Opus 7
Her mother purchased a set of sketchbooks by Hokusai
Katsushika Hokusai - Duck, Abalone Shell, and Parsley
Katsushika Hokusai - Fish, Flowers, and Telescope
Katsushika Hokusai - Women Imitating the Story of Narihira
Hishikawa Sōri - Poetic Immortals: Narihira and Hitomaro with Modern Women
Katsushika Hokusai - Ferry Boat
Katsushika Hokusai - Yoritoma’s Camp in the Foothills of Mount Fuji
Katsushika Hokusai - Bon Festival Dance
Once held in early autumn but now in summer, the Bon Festival is a dance festival to welcome dead spirits.
Katsushika Hokusai - Kamagato-dō Temple, Onmaya Embankment, the Hitdching Stone.
From right to left.
Katsushika Hokusai - View of Koshigoe from Shichiri-ga-Hama
Katsushika Hokusai - Actors Ichikawa Danjūrō VII as Asahina and Ichikawa Monnosuke III as Tsukisayo
Asashina is a buffoon and Tsukisayo is the wife of a friend of the Soga borthers.
Katsushika Hokusai - Rock
An upper class young woman uses pebbles and sand to make a landscape. Behind her is a painting showing Huang Zhuping, who can change rocks into goats and goats into rocks.
Katsushika Hokusai - Female Poet.
Totoya Hokkei - Eguchi
Totoya Hokkei - The Seaweed Gathering Ritual of the Mekari Shrine
That’s a wave but it looks more like a sandworm.
Katsukawa Shunshō - Parody of Egukchi no kimi
She’s riding an elephant. Maybe it looks more like a tapir for the same reason that earlier picture of a tiger has a way too long neck: because elephants aren’t indigenous to Japan. They were, but they died out some 24,000 years ago.
Shōtei Hokuju - True Description of the Fuji River
Shōtei Hokuju - True Description of the Ōi River
There’s no bridge so people crossed it by wading through it or riding on flat rafts.
Yoshitomo Nara - No Nukes!
A mushroom cloud replaces the cityscape from Hokujo’s painting.
Shōtei Hokuju - Satta Pass
Katsushika Hokusai - Komagata-dō Temple
Onmaya Embankment
The Hitching Stone
Felix Bracquemond - Birds and Fish
Felix Bracquemond - Fish
Eugene-Victor Collinot and Adalbert de Beaumont - Collection of Drawings for Art and Industry
Tray, teapot, sugar bowl, and cream jug, from England.
Katsushika Hokusai - Ushibori in Hitachi Province
Prussian Blue, called Berlin Blue in Japan, was more resistant to fading than previously used blue pigments.
Arthur Wesley Dow - View of Ipswitch
That’s Ipswitch, MA, kupo.
Dory
Frederick C. Carder - Blue Aurene fan face
Carder invented a blue coloring, which he called aurene.
Utagawa Hiroshige I - Kanbara: Night Snow, second state
Yokkaichi: Mie River
John Singer Sargent - Portrait of Dr. William Sturgis Bigelow
Bigelow as the donor who brought the MFA their collection of Hokusai prints.
Utagawa Hiroshige I - Plum Estate, Kameido
This scene was painted in oils by Vincent van Gogh.
Fukugawa Susaki and Jūmantsubo
A golden eagle watches clam diggers in low tides on the outskirts of Edo
Felix Bracquemond - Edmond de Goncourt
He was a great admirer of The Great Wave.
Seigfried Bing - Le Japon artistique
This brought forth the Art Nouveau movement.
Katsushika Hokusai - Sketchbooks, volume 1
Katsushika Hokusai - Sketchbooks, volume 2
Plates - I either took a really bad photo of the description or a really bad photo of the description of Claude Debussy’s La Mer and forgot to take a photo of the description. They’re plates.
Katsushika Hokusai - New Textile Patterns
Katsushika Taito - Pictures of Birds and Flowers volume 1
John Illingworth Kay or Arthur Silver - Length of Furnishing Fabric with Design of Mount Fuji
Japonisme led to Japanese-style interior decoration but not Japanese-style rooms, just European-style rooms with Japanese motifs.
Inkstand, designed by Paul Legrand
Mt. Fuji can be found here.
Katsushika Hokusai - Ejiri in Suruga Province
Fuji is a symbol of permanence while the waves are chaotic and ephemeral. A hat and a packet of tissues are borne away.
Kajikazawa in Kai Province
Japanese fishermen would train cormorants.
Senju in Musashi Province
Fuji View Plain in Owari Province
Gee, Brain, what are we going to do today?
The same thing we do every day, Pinky. Run that stupid maze.
Jumpei Mitsui - The Great Wave
50,000 lego bricks. And here I thought Rivendell is daunting.
I think it’s solid.
If you look closely, you can see that it is in four segments, presumably for ease of transportation.
Lydia Benglis - Palladium Wave
A commission for the Louisiana Exposition in New Orleans. She’d pour materials over balls and balloons to make the wave.
Christiane Baumgartner - The Wave
John Cederquist - How To Wrap Five Waves
He’d make furniture and then paint them with optical illusions. So it looks both flat and yet three dimensional.
Roy Lichtenstein - Drowing Girl
Unknown 19th century Japanese artist - Length of cotton with design of crested waves
Henri Gustave Jossot - La vague
Henri Rivière - Wave Breaking Against A Rock and Falling in an Arch
Christopher Richard Wynn Nevinson - The Wave
Here there’s a dearth of humans or their objects.
Mika Ninagawa - Portrait of Yuzuru Hanyu
He’s a superstar figure skater and gold medalist, posing in this shot like the wave.
Katsushika Hokusai - Modern Designs for Combs and Pipes
Edo Japanese didn’t wear rings, bracelets, or necklaces. Instead, they focused on hairpins and pipe cases and pillboxes and netsuke.
Margot de Taxco - Wave Circle Bracelet
Tlachco, place of the ballgame, is known for its silvermines and is nowhere near the ocean.
Ivan Yakolevich Bilibin - The Story of Tsar Saltan
Winslow Homer- Breaking Wave
Bertha Boynton Lum - Gods, Goblins, and Ghosts: The Weird Legends of the Far East
Francis Newton Souza - The Wave (After Hiroshige)
Gisbert Combaz - Envelope and five postcards from the series La Mer
Katsushika Hokusai - Panoramic View of Enoshima
Utagawa Hiroshige II - Seven Mile Beach in Sagami Province
Katsushika Hokusai - Under The Wave off Kanagawa
Probably the most famous work of Japanese art. There’s a glimpse of Mt. Fuji in the distance.
Katsushika Hokusai - Spring View of Enoshima
Sakai Hōitsu - One Hundred Paintings by Kōrin
Mia Carpenter - Three Women in Floral Bathing Suits With Stylized Waves
An advertisement for a department store, perhaps.
Andy Warhol - The Great Wave (After Hokusai)
Yoshitomo Nara - Slash with a Knife
Nara rotated the wave ninety degrees sunwise and turned it into hair.
Linda Sormin - Boru Sibaso Poet, on the foam of the primordial sea
She assembled these things from various discarded objects and ceramics and gold leaf. The art also includes the sound of bubbles and flowing water and voices glitching in and out of that seascape.
Edouard Vuillard - L’avenue
Katsushika Hokusai - Nihonbashi Bridge in Edo
All roads lead to Nihonbashi
Paul Gauguin - Mahna No Varua Ino (The Devil Speaks)
This depicts a ceremony on Tahiti, in defiance of the French authorities.
Katsushika Hokusai - Poem by Minamoto no Muneyuki Asan
Henri Rivière - Working in the Fields
Both Hokusai and Rivière were city dwellers who were fascinated by countryside life.
Katsushika Hokusai - Fuji from the Tea Plantation of Katakura in Sugura Province
Katsushika Hokusai - Under Mannen Bridge at Fukagawa
Edo was famed for its canals.
Utagawa Hiroshige I - Bamboo Yards, Kyōbashi Bridge
James Abbott McNeill Whistler - Old Battersea Bridge
Whistler brought ukiyo-e prints to England and the rest of the Anglosphere.
Tobari Kogan - The Great Bridge at Senju
Here we see Japanese artists creating their responses to western art.
Japan was industrializing at the time.
Daisy Makeig-Jones - Temple on a Rock vase with cover.
This design was a response to the mud and trenches and blood and disease of World War I. Art Nouveau mostly ceased by then, because most of the artists were like “the world is an ugly and violent place and there is no place for beauty.”
Daisy Makeig-Jones disagreed with that sentiment.
Katsushika Hokusai - The Hanging-cloud Bridge at Mount Gyōdō near Ashikaga
This print, however, was inspired by Chinese landscape paintings.
Utagawa Hiroshige I - Inside Kameido Tenjin Shrine
Katsushika Hokusai - The Drum Bridge at Kameido Tenjin Shrine
Unknown - Wisteria at Kameido, Tokyo
Arthur Tress - Four Photographs from the Morro Rock Series
Henry Rivière - Thirty-Six Views of the Eiffel Tower
Katsushika Hokusai - Li Bai Admiring A Waterfall
日照香炉生紫烟
遥看瀑布挂前川
飞流直下三千尺
疑是银河落九天
sunlight streams on the river stones
from high above, the river steadily plunges
three thousand feet of sparkling water
the milky way pouring down from heaven
Claude Monet - The Water Lily Pond
Katsushika Hokusai - The care-of-the-aged Falls in Mino Province
The falls are thought to renew life in the elderly.
Katsushika Hokusai - The Amida Falls in the Far Reaches of the Kisokaidō Road
Keisai Eisen - The Faling Mist Waterfall
The Kegon Falls
Backward-viewing falls
Eisen was an artist more known for prints of women in the latest fashions.
Katsushika Hokusai - Yoshitsune’s Horse-washing Falls at Yoshino in Yamato Province
Katsushika Hokusai - The Falling Mist Waterfall at Mount Kurokami in Shimotsuke Province
Loïs Malou Jones - Japanese Waterfall
Edna Boies Hopkins - Cascades
In Provincetown, there was a group of printers who made woodcuts inspired by Japan’s but used different techniques
Shit, I can’t read that.
My google fu tells me that the painting is by Marion Estes and it’s called Chemical Falls. I can’t read the description. I guess it’s a protest to environmental degradation and it’s based on futurist art.
Yayoi Kusama - Where The Universe and Human Life Are
She says it’s not based on any other artist…
Yvonne Jacquette - Two Bridges III
Depicting two bridges in Lower Manhattan.
Onchi Kōshirō - New Praise of Fuji
Onchi was one of the first artists to see Mount Fuji from the air.
Onchi Kōshirō - New Praise of Fuji dust jacket
By 1910, ukiyo-e style prints were no longer in vogue.
Katsushika Hokusai - Rainstorm beneath the Summit
This was painted entirely from imagination.
Utagawa Hiroshige I - Sudden Shower over Shin-Ōhashi Bridge and Atake
This painting was recreated by Van Gogh.
Punch bowl and ladle
It’s unlikely the designers were aware that in Japanese legends, carp could transform into dragons. Probably just saw the two together in art.
Crab plate
she had a tattoo of a crab, its carapace marked with a full moon and two crescents with their horns pointed in opposite directions. Not sure if the crab represents Zeromus or the sea or just a crab.
a knotted rope on her wrist. a crescent moon on her hand. a rose on her shoulder. a bird on her scapula.
Katsushika Hokusai - Flowering Cherry Branch with advertisement for Senjokō
Katsushika Hokusai - Shrimp
Rimpa painting uses wet on wet and lacks outlines
Ryūryūkyo Shinsai - Two Crabs
Boneless style for boneless animals
The butterbur nearby is also food.
Utagawa Hiroshige I - Spiny Lobster and Shrimp.
Spiny lobsters are smaller than Atlantic lobsters and don’t have giant Zoidberg claws.
Utagawa Hiroshige I - Marbled rockfish, chicken grunt, and ginger
Marbled rockfish AKA scorpionfish have venomous spinities on their fins but are supposedly delicious once they’re gone. They remind me of stonefish.
Katsushika Hokusai - Horses in pasture
Katherine Lane Weems - Colt standing
She liked to sculpt both from real life animals and from depictions of animals in various art forms.
Katsushika Taito II - Carp in Water
Utagawa Hiroshige I - Carp
Totoya Hokkei - Carp and Seaweed
John la Farge - The Fish
Katsushika Hokusai - Carp and Iris
Carp are viewed as symbols of bravery and perseverance.
This was once part of a fan. It was removed from its frame for better preservation.
Katsushika Hokusai - Two Carp in Waterfall
In Chinese legend, carp that can swim up the rapids along the Yellow River will transform into dragons.
Utagawa Hiroshige - Chiryū: Early Summer Horse Fair
Totoya Hokkei - Painted Horse Escaping from Ema
An ema is a votive plaque.
Edgar Degas - Racehorses at Longchamp.
Horse racing was en vogue in 19th century Paris.
Sarah Wyman Whitman - Floral Medallion
Many of her glassworks are found in Boston churches and other institutions.
Utagawa Hiroshige I - Geese Flying Across Full Moon
The full moon was said to be most beautiful in autumn,
a night like this one
will it ever come again?
geese against the moon
Utagawa Hiroshige I - Hibiscus
The poem on it talks of sparrows returning to their nests. The MFA didn’t even bother to translate it.
Utagawa Hiroshige I - White Heron and Iris
白鷺下田千點雪
黄鴬上樹一枝花
white herons fly low across the fields
like a thousand flakes of snow
yellow birds perch on the tree
like flowers clustered on a branch
Utagawa Hiroshige - Magpie and Azalea
the evening mountain–
is it renewed in sunlight with
azalea flowers?
Utagawa Hiroshige - Aronia and Bullfinch
The poem is by Bai Juyi
under the blossoms the scene was so
beautiful that we forgot about going home
with the wine keg in hand, it was the spring
wind that encouraged intoxication
Utagawa Hiroshige - Mallard Ducks and Snow-covered Reeds
a duck is calling–
the wind blows ripples over
the water’s surface
John Bennett - Lilac Vace
Creamer and Bowl
Each vessel is a mass of leaves with an insect crawling over it.
Vase
With kingfigers
Jug
With bamboo stalks and insects
Chrysanthemum vase
Robert Kushner - White Cyclamen I
The Pattern and Decoration movement of the 1970s favored geometric floral patterns and rejected minimalism and other artistic trends. They resonated with Islamic tilework, Iranian carpets, and Japanese art.
Katsushika Hokusai - Hydrangeas and Swallow
Katsushika Hokusai - Morning Glories and Tree Frog
Normally morning glories grow on vines rather than stalks.
Edna Boies Hopkins - Sea Cabbage
Edna Boies Hopkins - Fuchsia
Edna Boies Hopkins - Phlox
Edna Boies Hopkins - Honeysuckle
Katsushika Hokusai - Wisteria and Wagtail
Stretching creepers emerge from cloudy trees
Their dangling ropes cover the nesting crane
This is by Qian Qi. Anyone reading this for longer than four months would recognize him from Das Lied von der Erde.
Katsushika Hokusai - Java Sparrow on Magnolia
The east wind rises by day and night
peach and pear blossoms are blown away
but setting a standard for flowers
magnolia petals fall later
東風日夜発
桃李不禁吹
検点濃華事
辛夷落較遅
陳淳
Katsushika Hokusai - Bullfinch and Weeping Cherry
Just a single bird
has emerged in the dampness–
morning cherry blossoms
Katsushika Hokusai - Kingfisher with Iris and Wild Pinks
turning, a brilliant azure hue
in motion, a delicate blue
回顧生碧色
動揺揚縹青
蔡邕
Katsushika Hokusai - Hawfinch and Marvel-of-Peru
The flowers originated in South America and were brought to Japan by the Dutch.
the marvel-of-peru
flowers grow behind the hedge
of the peonies
Unknown artist - Banner design: Han Xin Crawling Under The Legs of the Bully
Unknown artist - Snake: Design for a pair of folding screens
Odilon Redon - The misshapen polyp floated on the shores, a sort of smiling and hideous Cyclops
in the 19th century, both Japan and Europe had a taste for the macabre and grotesque (and also titles that are a real mouthful)
Judith Schaechter - Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife
This is the stained lightbox.
The composition is based on The Birth of Venus, while the bulbous head, the waves, and the presence of octopodes are straight out of Hokusai.
This is the pigment print
Chehalis Hegner - Chastity Belt
I forgot to take a photo of the description and the only reason I know the title is because a woman with eldritch blue and green and pink hair pointed it out. Is it a real octopus? I don’t know. I think it is. And the crotch belongs to the artist. Is it a commentary on womanhood? Maybe. Probably.
Shunkōsai Hokushū - Actor Onoe Kikugorō III as the Ghost of Oiwa (second state)
Katsushika Hokusai - The Mansion of the Plates
The maidservant Okiku was accused of breaking a plate. Either she killed herself by diving into a well or was killed by the enraged master of the mansion and her corpse was tossed in the well. Okiku’s ghost would rise from the well each night and count the plates and shriek when she came up short one plate.
I swear the plate ghost shows up in video games.
Katsushika Hokusai - Laughing Demon
The demon’s face is based on the Hannya mask used in nō theatre, a mask depicting either demons taking on the form of women or women who are overpowered by negative emotion and turn into demons.
Katsushika Hokusai - Obseession
Here, the deceased was bound to the world by emotions and returned in the form of a snake. Momonjii is a flying squirrel spirit that occasionally takes the form of a strange-looking old man
Katsushika Hokusai - The Ghost of Kohada Koheiji
Kohada Koheiji was murdered by his wife and her lover. On a summer night, his ghost would tear down the mosquito netting and loom over them as a decomposing corpse.
Katsukawa Shun’ei and Katsukawa Shunshō - Once Upon a Time
Ganbari nyūdō peers into the privy on New Years Eve and gives bad luck to anyone who sees it. On the other side, Edo is haunted by the sound of ghostly wooden clappers. It’s not given a description so the artists made something up.
Katsushika Hokusai - The Ghost of Oiwa
A samurai married Oiwa, daughter of a warrior family. But then he killed her with poison and she hunated him.
Emma Helle - The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife
In Helle’s version, a woman is experiencing sexual delight along with the sea creatures.
Shit, I might have to find some alternate hosting for this. For now, it’s on Wikipedia so look it up.
In Hokusai’s lifetime, erotic prints and books were illegal but the laws weren’t always enforced.
Masami Teraoka - Sarah and Octopus / Seventh Heaven
The artist thought that Sarah really ought to use a condom.
Chiho Aoshima - A Contented Skull
Chiho Aoshima combines the aesthetics of shōjo, that is to say, anime and manga made with that teenage girl demographic in mind, and superflat, the art style of Takashi Murakami, and then uses the style of an ukiyo-e print.
Kotoharu Gotōge - Kimetsu no Yaiba: Demon Slayer Mugen Train
In the Taishō era, that period from 1912 to 1926 where Japan went from backwards fiefdoms to imperial power, Kamado Tanjirō’s family was killed by demons and he joined a secret society devoted to fighting them with the power of martial arts prowess. The setting allowed for a combination of technology, like the train, combined with traditional Japanese clothing.
Manga in the days of Hokusai referred to any informal drawing but nowadays, it refers to any story told in multiple panels.
Artist unknown - Female ghost in the moonlight
Ubume are the ghosts of women who die in childbirth, typically clutching a ghost. She’d pass it on to passersby and sometimes they’d be crushed by a heavy falling object or maybe they’d just find that the bundle they’re holding is just a rock or a bunch of sticks and leaves.
Katsushika Hokusai - Nanba no Rokurō Tsunetō
The 12th century warrior Nanba no Rokurō received a prophecy from the dragon kingdom hidden behind the Nunobiki Falls and was struck down by a lightning bolt as punishment for revealing said prophecy.
Utagawa Kuniyoshi - Huangxin, Guardian of Three Mountains
Utagawa Kuniyoshi - Shi Yong, the Stone General
Utagawa Kuniyoshi - Saginoike Heikurō
A story tells of Saginoke Heikurō defeating with his bare hands a giant serpent that attacked him while he was fishing. Later, he became a samurai.
Joyce Kozloff - Boys’ Art no. 2: Nagasaki
She took a 18th century map of Nagasaki and adds childhood drawings done by her brother and by her son and figures from high culture and pop culture.
Teisai Hokuba - Nanba Rokurō Tsunetō and the Ghost of Akugenda Yoshihira
Katsushika Hokusai - The Night Attack in Act XI of the Storehouse of Loyal Retainers
In the final act, our heroes, the forty seven rōnin, disguise themselves as firefighters and attack the enemy’s manor. In the MFA’s collection, a part of the print is missing so they fill in the void with a photograph of someone else’s print.
Katsushika Hokusai - Ki no Natora and Ōtomo no Yoshio Wrestling
The most important sumō match in history. Even more important than Clobbersaurus. Emperor Montoku decided his successor would be the winner of a match between his two sons. The undedog Yoshio won and became Emperor.
Katsushika Hokusai - Watanabe no Gengo Tsuna and Inokuma Nyūdō Raiun
Katsushika Hokusai - Oni Kojima Yatarō and Saihō-in Akabōzu
Manjirō Hokuga - Illustration from the book The Strange Tale of the Cresecent Moon Bow: The Wolf Yamao Attacks A Giant Serpent on Behalf of His Master and Leaves his Bones in the Mountains
Katsushika Hokki - In The Play Honchō Furisode no Hajime, Susanoo no Mikoto Subudes the Monsters
This print was banned a few days later.
Totoya Hokkei - Liu Bang Kills The White Surpant
Liu Bang was the first Emperor of the Han Dynasty (this is actual history) and fought a giant white serpent with poison breath (this didn’t happen in real life). The poems, which can hardly be seen, describe dragon-shaped clouds over pine trees.
Utagawa Yoshitsuya - Namba Rokurō Tsunetō, by order of Naidaijiin Shigemori, Enters the Pool of Nunobiki Waterfall and Comes to the Dragon Waterfall
Utagawa Kuniyoshi - The Former Emperor [Sutoku] From Sanuki Sends His Retainres to Rescue Tametomo
Utagawa Kuniyoshi - On The Sea at Mizumata in Higo Province, Tamatomo Encounters A Storm
Katsushika Hokusai - Zhong Kui, the Demon Queller
Zhong Kui was cheated out of his government position, killed himself, and as a ghost, vowed to protect the world from demons that cause disease and misfortune. To display his image was to ward off bad luck. Hokusai painted him with red ink because red is the color of life and luck.
burning question: Can the Gummi Worms really live in peace with the Marshmallow Chicks?
Annabeth Rosen - Wave
It’s made from ceramics, not bowling pins.
From a different view.
Peter Soriano - Wave
Inspired by a magnitude 9.1 earthquake and subsequent tsunami and based on the Great Wave and Titian’s The Submersion of the Pharaoh’s Army in the Red Sea. He wanted to evoke the way the wave appears to be grabbing the boats.
Katsushika Hokusai - Fine Wind, Clear Weather
Mt. Fuji colored red by the rising sun on a clear morning in late summer or early autumn.
Totoya Hokkei - Mt. Fuji from the series of Three Lucky Dreams.
The auspicious things to dream about on the New Year are Mt. Fuji, hawks, and eggplants. When I have thoughts about things before bed, my dreams tend to be entirely unrelated. The snow was once bright silver but has now tarnished with time.
Yoshitomo Nara - White Fujiyama Ski Gelände
Nara painted over reproductions of famous prints and then xeroxed them. In this case, he took Red Fuji.
Katsukawa Shunshō - Scenes of Amusment in Spring and Summer
Katsukawa Shunshō - Shakkyō, the Lion Dance
Katsushika Hokusai - Woman from Ohara Carrying Bundles of Firewood
Ohara is a rural area outside of Kyoto.
Katsukawa Shunshō - Actors Ichimura Uzaemon IX as Kudō Suketsune, Ichikawa Yaozō as Soga no Gorō and Sakata Hangorō as Kobayashi Asahina
The hero, in the center, confronts his father’s murderer on the right. I don’t know what the third guy is doing because it’s not in the description. However, you can see Mt. Fuji formed from incense smoke.
Katsushika Hokusai - Actor Sakata Hangorō as a Traveling Priest, actually Chinzei Hachirō Tametomo
The hero is in a graveyard revealing his true identity and holding the skull of his deceased lord, preparing to avenge his lost cause and fallen comrades.
Katsushika Hokusai - Actor Segawa Kikunojō III as the Courtesan Azuma
Katsukawa Shunshō - Actor Ichikawa Danzō in his Dressing Room with Segawa Kijunojō III
By the 1760s, Shunsho drew popular theater stars with their features and not just generic faces.
Katsushika Hokusai - Actors Sawamura Gennosuke I as Ume no Yoshebei and Segawa Michinosuke as Yoshibe’s Wife Komune
???
Utagawa Toyokuni - Actors Segawa Roko IV as Yoshibei’s Wife Komune and Sawamura Gennosuke I as Ume no Yoshebei.
Shiba Kōkan - Dad’s Teahouse in Hiroo
Kōkan went to Nagasaki to study Dutch art.
Katsuhuka Hokusai - The Dutch Picher Lens, Eight Views of Edo
???
Katsukawa Shunshō - The Night Attack at Horikawa
He’d occassionally but rarely use vanishing point perspective. Here, 12th century general Minamoto no Yoshitune confronted their enemies in a mansion in Kyoto. The women in the distance have 18th century hairstyles and clothing. The description says that was meant a joke. Perhaps a comment on Europeans and their tendency to dress bronze age peoples in their clothing.
Kano Yūsen Hironobu - Cranes and Bamboo
Tortoises and Waterfall
Katsushika Hokusai - Interior of a House in the Yoshihara
Tarawaya Sōri - Winter Peony
He died unexpectively and Hokusai took over the school.
Katsushika Hokusai - Peonies and Butterflies
Hokusai rendered the peonies in three distinct ways
Utagawa Toyoharu - Perspective Picture of a Snow-viewing Party
Katsushika Hokusai - The Story of Minamoto Yoshitsune and Jōruri-hime
Here, Joruri-hime is playing the koto and Minamoto is playing the flute. For whatever reason, Yoshitsune himself wears period clothing but everyone else wears Edo fashions.
Katsushika Isai - The Goddess of Itsukushima and the God of the Gion Shrine
Katsushika Isai - An Illustrated Life of Nichiren
These are the finished versions.
Manjirō Hokuga - Tiger in a Thunder Storm
Tigers are paired with dragons. Dragons make the rain while tigers roar and make the wind. Since there are no native tigers in Japan, they have been mythologized and the artists just guessed based on cats, who are basically just small tigers that meow instead of roar, and tiger pelts imported from Korea.
Katsushika Hokusai - Sketch of Figures Prepared for Instructions of a Pupil
Numata Gessai - The Female Captain of the Boat
Some of the students were samurai.
She has shaved eyebrows to indicate that she is married and has children.
Hishikawa Sōri - Courtesan with Child Attendants
Jofū - Woman Holding Child Beneath Willows
Ōsai - Courtesan and Child Attendant Beneath Willows
Kisai - Woman on a Riverboat Dock Beneath Willows
While these three paintings are displayed together, they’re distinct.
Katsushika Hokusai - Nichiren Shōnin Writing on the Waves
To paint spray, Hokusai would put white paint on a brush and then blow on it.
Nichiren, during a storm, wrote the Lotus Sutra on the waves to calm them.
Jofū, Ōsai, Nansai - Picture Album of Hokusai’s Oldest Daughter Jofū.
Katsushika Ōi - Album of the Old Man Crazy About Painting
Katsushika Ōi - Three Women Playing Musical Instruments
His third daughter Oi used a similar style to her father but included more shading.
Manjisai Isshō - Album of Nine Small Paintings
Completely unknown artist but may have been a pupil of Oi and not Katsushika
Katsushika Hokusai II, whomever that is.
Three Women: Geisha
Three Women: Palace Maid
Three Women: Farm Woman
Kerria roses for the geisha, peonies for the palace maid, and narcissus for the country girl.
Manjirō Hokuga - A Young Samuria Punishing a Scoundrel
I love the moon here.
Manjirō Hokuga - The Knowledge of Color
Manjisai Hokusen - Album of Sketches
Katsushika Hokusai (probably) - Album of Miscellaneous Sketches including Designs for Artisans
Katsushika Hokusai - Yoshitsune Jumps Over Eight Boats
Narui Sadao - The Founding of the Jetavana Temple
Narui Sadao - The Founding of the Jetavana Temple
Narui Sadao - The Founding of the Jetavana Temple
Yanagawa Shigenobu II - Mountain Dweller
Yanagawa Shigenobu II - Summer Robe
The print uses indigo, which was and still is used to dye garments, and prussian blue.
Yanagawa Shigenobu II and Shunkōsai Hokushū - Memorial Portait of Actor Arashi Kitsusaburō
depicted in his last great role, the archer Minamoto no Yorimasa, who shot down a monster flying over the palace in Kyoto.
Hōtei Gosei - Shrine in Snow
Teisai Hokuba - Octopus Tentacle
Except they’re techically arms and anyone who’s read City of Saints and Madmen would know that. Since Hokuba died in 1844, he hasn’t read that so that’s his excuse.
Ryūryūko Shinsai - New Year’s Refreshments
Ryūryūko Shinsai - A Bolt of Obi Fabric with Hair Ornaments
Yanagawa Shigenobu I - Tea Utensils and Rolled Scroll Painting
Yanagawa Shigenobu I - Seated Woman with Shamisen and Libretto
Yanagawa Shigenobu I - Hanatsuru-dayū of the Higashi-Ōgiya as the Dragon Princess Oto-hime and Hinaji-dayū of the Higashi-Ōgiya as Tawara Tōda
Hm, apparently 19th century Japan had divorce.
Yashima Gakutei - Shelter from the Rain at Tenpōzan by the Aji River in Osaka
Yashima Gakutei - Pentaptych for the Hisakataya Poety Club: Women’s Gagoku Concert under Cherry Blossoms
Francesco Clemente - Morning
The print looked a lot like a watercolor painting and sparked debate.
Helen Frankenthaler - Cedar Hill
Both artists collaborated with Japanese ukiyo-e printers.
Katshushika Taito II - Goddess Drawing a Bow
Either a Tibetan goddess or a nine-tailed fox who took human form.
Katshushika Taito II - Court Lady and Attendannt Gathering Pine Shoots
Katshushika Taito II, Taigaku - Composite Picture (hanimaze): Swallow and Spider, Branch of Loquat, Calligraphy
Katshushika Taito II - Composite Picture (hanimaze): Monkey Bridge in Moonlight, Calligraphy in Rubbing Style
Katshushika Taito II - Composite Picture (hanimaze): Bats and Moon, Dragon in Clouds, Calligraphy
Katshushika Taito II - Composite Picture (hanimaze): Finches on a Cherry Branch, Rubbing of Calligraphy of Kumagai Naozane, and Morning Glories and Bee
Good thing the titles are so self-explanatory.
Nancy Genn - Opus 7
Her mother purchased a set of sketchbooks by Hokusai
Katsushika Hokusai - Duck, Abalone Shell, and Parsley
Katsushika Hokusai - Fish, Flowers, and Telescope
Katsushika Hokusai - Women Imitating the Story of Narihira
Hishikawa Sōri - Poetic Immortals: Narihira and Hitomaro with Modern Women
Katsushika Hokusai - Ferry Boat
Katsushika Hokusai - Yoritoma’s Camp in the Foothills of Mount Fuji
Katsushika Hokusai - Bon Festival Dance
Once held in early autumn but now in summer, the Bon Festival is a dance festival to welcome dead spirits.
Katsushika Hokusai - Kamagato-dō Temple, Onmaya Embankment, the Hitdching Stone.
From right to left.
Katsushika Hokusai - View of Koshigoe from Shichiri-ga-Hama
Katsushika Hokusai - Actors Ichikawa Danjūrō VII as Asahina and Ichikawa Monnosuke III as Tsukisayo
Asashina is a buffoon and Tsukisayo is the wife of a friend of the Soga borthers.
Katsushika Hokusai - Rock
An upper class young woman uses pebbles and sand to make a landscape. Behind her is a painting showing Huang Zhuping, who can change rocks into goats and goats into rocks.
Katsushika Hokusai - Female Poet.
Totoya Hokkei - Eguchi
Totoya Hokkei - The Seaweed Gathering Ritual of the Mekari Shrine
That’s a wave but it looks more like a sandworm.
Katsukawa Shunshō - Parody of Egukchi no kimi
She’s riding an elephant. Maybe it looks more like a tapir for the same reason that earlier picture of a tiger has a way too long neck: because elephants aren’t indigenous to Japan. They were, but they died out some 24,000 years ago.
Shōtei Hokuju - True Description of the Fuji River
Shōtei Hokuju - True Description of the Ōi River
There’s no bridge so people crossed it by wading through it or riding on flat rafts.
Yoshitomo Nara - No Nukes!
A mushroom cloud replaces the cityscape from Hokujo’s painting.
Shōtei Hokuju - Satta Pass
Katsushika Hokusai - Komagata-dō Temple
Onmaya Embankment
The Hitching Stone
Felix Bracquemond - Birds and Fish
Felix Bracquemond - Fish
Eugene-Victor Collinot and Adalbert de Beaumont - Collection of Drawings for Art and Industry
Tray, teapot, sugar bowl, and cream jug, from England.
Katsushika Hokusai - Ushibori in Hitachi Province
Prussian Blue, called Berlin Blue in Japan, was more resistant to fading than previously used blue pigments.
Arthur Wesley Dow - View of Ipswitch
That’s Ipswitch, MA, kupo.
Dory
Frederick C. Carder - Blue Aurene fan face
Carder invented a blue coloring, which he called aurene.
Utagawa Hiroshige I - Kanbara: Night Snow, second state
Yokkaichi: Mie River
John Singer Sargent - Portrait of Dr. William Sturgis Bigelow
Bigelow as the donor who brought the MFA their collection of Hokusai prints.
Utagawa Hiroshige I - Plum Estate, Kameido
This scene was painted in oils by Vincent van Gogh.
Fukugawa Susaki and Jūmantsubo
A golden eagle watches clam diggers in low tides on the outskirts of Edo
Felix Bracquemond - Edmond de Goncourt
He was a great admirer of The Great Wave.
Seigfried Bing - Le Japon artistique
This brought forth the Art Nouveau movement.
Katsushika Hokusai - Sketchbooks, volume 1
Katsushika Hokusai - Sketchbooks, volume 2
Plates - I either took a really bad photo of the description or a really bad photo of the description of Claude Debussy’s La Mer and forgot to take a photo of the description. They’re plates.
Katsushika Hokusai - New Textile Patterns
Katsushika Taito - Pictures of Birds and Flowers volume 1
John Illingworth Kay or Arthur Silver - Length of Furnishing Fabric with Design of Mount Fuji
Japonisme led to Japanese-style interior decoration but not Japanese-style rooms, just European-style rooms with Japanese motifs.
Inkstand, designed by Paul Legrand
Mt. Fuji can be found here.
Katsushika Hokusai - Ejiri in Suruga Province
Fuji is a symbol of permanence while the waves are chaotic and ephemeral. A hat and a packet of tissues are borne away.
Kajikazawa in Kai Province
Japanese fishermen would train cormorants.
Senju in Musashi Province
Fuji View Plain in Owari Province
Gee, Brain, what are we going to do today?
The same thing we do every day, Pinky. Run that stupid maze.
Jumpei Mitsui - The Great Wave
50,000 lego bricks. And here I thought Rivendell is daunting.
I think it’s solid.
If you look closely, you can see that it is in four segments, presumably for ease of transportation.
Lydia Benglis - Palladium Wave
A commission for the Louisiana Exposition in New Orleans. She’d pour materials over balls and balloons to make the wave.
Christiane Baumgartner - The Wave
John Cederquist - How To Wrap Five Waves
He’d make furniture and then paint them with optical illusions. So it looks both flat and yet three dimensional.
Roy Lichtenstein - Drowing Girl
Unknown 19th century Japanese artist - Length of cotton with design of crested waves
Henri Gustave Jossot - La vague
Henri Rivière - Wave Breaking Against A Rock and Falling in an Arch
Christopher Richard Wynn Nevinson - The Wave
Here there’s a dearth of humans or their objects.
Mika Ninagawa - Portrait of Yuzuru Hanyu
He’s a superstar figure skater and gold medalist, posing in this shot like the wave.
Katsushika Hokusai - Modern Designs for Combs and Pipes
Edo Japanese didn’t wear rings, bracelets, or necklaces. Instead, they focused on hairpins and pipe cases and pillboxes and netsuke.
Margot de Taxco - Wave Circle Bracelet
Tlachco, place of the ballgame, is known for its silvermines and is nowhere near the ocean.
Ivan Yakolevich Bilibin - The Story of Tsar Saltan
Winslow Homer- Breaking Wave
Bertha Boynton Lum - Gods, Goblins, and Ghosts: The Weird Legends of the Far East
Francis Newton Souza - The Wave (After Hiroshige)
Gisbert Combaz - Envelope and five postcards from the series La Mer
Katsushika Hokusai - Panoramic View of Enoshima
Utagawa Hiroshige II - Seven Mile Beach in Sagami Province
Katsushika Hokusai - Under The Wave off Kanagawa
Probably the most famous work of Japanese art. There’s a glimpse of Mt. Fuji in the distance.
Katsushika Hokusai - Spring View of Enoshima
Sakai Hōitsu - One Hundred Paintings by Kōrin
Mia Carpenter - Three Women in Floral Bathing Suits With Stylized Waves
An advertisement for a department store, perhaps.
Andy Warhol - The Great Wave (After Hokusai)
Yoshitomo Nara - Slash with a Knife
Nara rotated the wave ninety degrees sunwise and turned it into hair.
Linda Sormin - Boru Sibaso Poet, on the foam of the primordial sea
She assembled these things from various discarded objects and ceramics and gold leaf. The art also includes the sound of bubbles and flowing water and voices glitching in and out of that seascape.
Edouard Vuillard - L’avenue
Katsushika Hokusai - Nihonbashi Bridge in Edo
All roads lead to Nihonbashi
Paul Gauguin - Mahna No Varua Ino (The Devil Speaks)
This depicts a ceremony on Tahiti, in defiance of the French authorities.
Katsushika Hokusai - Poem by Minamoto no Muneyuki Asan
Henri Rivière - Working in the Fields
Both Hokusai and Rivière were city dwellers who were fascinated by countryside life.
Katsushika Hokusai - Fuji from the Tea Plantation of Katakura in Sugura Province
Katsushika Hokusai - Under Mannen Bridge at Fukagawa
Edo was famed for its canals.
Utagawa Hiroshige I - Bamboo Yards, Kyōbashi Bridge
James Abbott McNeill Whistler - Old Battersea Bridge
Whistler brought ukiyo-e prints to England and the rest of the Anglosphere.
Tobari Kogan - The Great Bridge at Senju
Here we see Japanese artists creating their responses to western art.
Japan was industrializing at the time.
Daisy Makeig-Jones - Temple on a Rock vase with cover.
This design was a response to the mud and trenches and blood and disease of World War I. Art Nouveau mostly ceased by then, because most of the artists were like “the world is an ugly and violent place and there is no place for beauty.”
Daisy Makeig-Jones disagreed with that sentiment.
Katsushika Hokusai - The Hanging-cloud Bridge at Mount Gyōdō near Ashikaga
This print, however, was inspired by Chinese landscape paintings.
Utagawa Hiroshige I - Inside Kameido Tenjin Shrine
Katsushika Hokusai - The Drum Bridge at Kameido Tenjin Shrine
Unknown - Wisteria at Kameido, Tokyo
Arthur Tress - Four Photographs from the Morro Rock Series
Henry Rivière - Thirty-Six Views of the Eiffel Tower
Katsushika Hokusai - Li Bai Admiring A Waterfall
日照香炉生紫烟
遥看瀑布挂前川
飞流直下三千尺
疑是银河落九天
sunlight streams on the river stones
from high above, the river steadily plunges
three thousand feet of sparkling water
the milky way pouring down from heaven
Claude Monet - The Water Lily Pond
Katsushika Hokusai - The care-of-the-aged Falls in Mino Province
The falls are thought to renew life in the elderly.
Katsushika Hokusai - The Amida Falls in the Far Reaches of the Kisokaidō Road
Keisai Eisen - The Faling Mist Waterfall
The Kegon Falls
Backward-viewing falls
Eisen was an artist more known for prints of women in the latest fashions.
Katsushika Hokusai - Yoshitsune’s Horse-washing Falls at Yoshino in Yamato Province
Katsushika Hokusai - The Falling Mist Waterfall at Mount Kurokami in Shimotsuke Province
Loïs Malou Jones - Japanese Waterfall
Edna Boies Hopkins - Cascades
In Provincetown, there was a group of printers who made woodcuts inspired by Japan’s but used different techniques
Shit, I can’t read that.
My google fu tells me that the painting is by Marion Estes and it’s called Chemical Falls. I can’t read the description. I guess it’s a protest to environmental degradation and it’s based on futurist art.
Yayoi Kusama - Where The Universe and Human Life Are
She says it’s not based on any other artist…
Yvonne Jacquette - Two Bridges III
Depicting two bridges in Lower Manhattan.
Onchi Kōshirō - New Praise of Fuji
Onchi was one of the first artists to see Mount Fuji from the air.
Onchi Kōshirō - New Praise of Fuji dust jacket
By 1910, ukiyo-e style prints were no longer in vogue.
Katsushika Hokusai - Rainstorm beneath the Summit
This was painted entirely from imagination.
Utagawa Hiroshige I - Sudden Shower over Shin-Ōhashi Bridge and Atake
This painting was recreated by Van Gogh.
Punch bowl and ladle
It’s unlikely the designers were aware that in Japanese legends, carp could transform into dragons. Probably just saw the two together in art.
Crab plate
she had a tattoo of a crab, its carapace marked with a full moon and two crescents with their horns pointed in opposite directions. Not sure if the crab represents Zeromus or the sea or just a crab.
a knotted rope on her wrist. a crescent moon on her hand. a rose on her shoulder. a bird on her scapula.
Katsushika Hokusai - Flowering Cherry Branch with advertisement for Senjokō
Katsushika Hokusai - Shrimp
Rimpa painting uses wet on wet and lacks outlines
Ryūryūkyo Shinsai - Two Crabs
Boneless style for boneless animals
The butterbur nearby is also food.
Utagawa Hiroshige I - Spiny Lobster and Shrimp.
Spiny lobsters are smaller than Atlantic lobsters and don’t have giant Zoidberg claws.
Utagawa Hiroshige I - Marbled rockfish, chicken grunt, and ginger
Marbled rockfish AKA scorpionfish have venomous spinities on their fins but are supposedly delicious once they’re gone. They remind me of stonefish.
Katsushika Hokusai - Horses in pasture
Katherine Lane Weems - Colt standing
She liked to sculpt both from real life animals and from depictions of animals in various art forms.
Katsushika Taito II - Carp in Water
Utagawa Hiroshige I - Carp
Totoya Hokkei - Carp and Seaweed
John la Farge - The Fish
Katsushika Hokusai - Carp and Iris
Carp are viewed as symbols of bravery and perseverance.
This was once part of a fan. It was removed from its frame for better preservation.
Katsushika Hokusai - Two Carp in Waterfall
In Chinese legend, carp that can swim up the rapids along the Yellow River will transform into dragons.
Utagawa Hiroshige - Chiryū: Early Summer Horse Fair
Totoya Hokkei - Painted Horse Escaping from Ema
An ema is a votive plaque.
Edgar Degas - Racehorses at Longchamp.
Horse racing was en vogue in 19th century Paris.
Sarah Wyman Whitman - Floral Medallion
Many of her glassworks are found in Boston churches and other institutions.
Utagawa Hiroshige I - Geese Flying Across Full Moon
The full moon was said to be most beautiful in autumn,
a night like this one
will it ever come again?
geese against the moon
Utagawa Hiroshige I - Hibiscus
The poem on it talks of sparrows returning to their nests. The MFA didn’t even bother to translate it.
Utagawa Hiroshige I - White Heron and Iris
白鷺下田千點雪
黄鴬上樹一枝花
white herons fly low across the fields
like a thousand flakes of snow
yellow birds perch on the tree
like flowers clustered on a branch
Utagawa Hiroshige - Magpie and Azalea
the evening mountain–
is it renewed in sunlight with
azalea flowers?
Utagawa Hiroshige - Aronia and Bullfinch
The poem is by Bai Juyi
under the blossoms the scene was so
beautiful that we forgot about going home
with the wine keg in hand, it was the spring
wind that encouraged intoxication
Utagawa Hiroshige - Mallard Ducks and Snow-covered Reeds
a duck is calling–
the wind blows ripples over
the water’s surface
John Bennett - Lilac Vace
Creamer and Bowl
Each vessel is a mass of leaves with an insect crawling over it.
Vase
With kingfigers
Jug
With bamboo stalks and insects
Chrysanthemum vase
Robert Kushner - White Cyclamen I
The Pattern and Decoration movement of the 1970s favored geometric floral patterns and rejected minimalism and other artistic trends. They resonated with Islamic tilework, Iranian carpets, and Japanese art.
Katsushika Hokusai - Hydrangeas and Swallow
Katsushika Hokusai - Morning Glories and Tree Frog
Normally morning glories grow on vines rather than stalks.
Edna Boies Hopkins - Sea Cabbage
Edna Boies Hopkins - Fuchsia
Edna Boies Hopkins - Phlox
Edna Boies Hopkins - Honeysuckle
Katsushika Hokusai - Wisteria and Wagtail
Stretching creepers emerge from cloudy trees
Their dangling ropes cover the nesting crane
This is by Qian Qi. Anyone reading this for longer than four months would recognize him from Das Lied von der Erde.
Katsushika Hokusai - Java Sparrow on Magnolia
The east wind rises by day and night
peach and pear blossoms are blown away
but setting a standard for flowers
magnolia petals fall later
東風日夜発
桃李不禁吹
検点濃華事
辛夷落較遅
陳淳
Katsushika Hokusai - Bullfinch and Weeping Cherry
Just a single bird
has emerged in the dampness–
morning cherry blossoms
Katsushika Hokusai - Kingfisher with Iris and Wild Pinks
turning, a brilliant azure hue
in motion, a delicate blue
回顧生碧色
動揺揚縹青
蔡邕
Katsushika Hokusai - Hawfinch and Marvel-of-Peru
The flowers originated in South America and were brought to Japan by the Dutch.
the marvel-of-peru
flowers grow behind the hedge
of the peonies
Unknown artist - Banner design: Han Xin Crawling Under The Legs of the Bully
Unknown artist - Snake: Design for a pair of folding screens
Odilon Redon - The misshapen polyp floated on the shores, a sort of smiling and hideous Cyclops
in the 19th century, both Japan and Europe had a taste for the macabre and grotesque (and also titles that are a real mouthful)
Judith Schaechter - Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife
This is the stained lightbox.
The composition is based on The Birth of Venus, while the bulbous head, the waves, and the presence of octopodes are straight out of Hokusai.
This is the pigment print
Chehalis Hegner - Chastity Belt
I forgot to take a photo of the description and the only reason I know the title is because a woman with eldritch blue and green and pink hair pointed it out. Is it a real octopus? I don’t know. I think it is. And the crotch belongs to the artist. Is it a commentary on womanhood? Maybe. Probably.
Shunkōsai Hokushū - Actor Onoe Kikugorō III as the Ghost of Oiwa (second state)
Katsushika Hokusai - The Mansion of the Plates
The maidservant Okiku was accused of breaking a plate. Either she killed herself by diving into a well or was killed by the enraged master of the mansion and her corpse was tossed in the well. Okiku’s ghost would rise from the well each night and count the plates and shriek when she came up short one plate.
I swear the plate ghost shows up in video games.
Katsushika Hokusai - Laughing Demon
The demon’s face is based on the Hannya mask used in nō theatre, a mask depicting either demons taking on the form of women or women who are overpowered by negative emotion and turn into demons.
Katsushika Hokusai - Obseession
Here, the deceased was bound to the world by emotions and returned in the form of a snake. Momonjii is a flying squirrel spirit that occasionally takes the form of a strange-looking old man
Katsushika Hokusai - The Ghost of Kohada Koheiji
Kohada Koheiji was murdered by his wife and her lover. On a summer night, his ghost would tear down the mosquito netting and loom over them as a decomposing corpse.
Katsukawa Shun’ei and Katsukawa Shunshō - Once Upon a Time
Ganbari nyūdō peers into the privy on New Years Eve and gives bad luck to anyone who sees it. On the other side, Edo is haunted by the sound of ghostly wooden clappers. It’s not given a description so the artists made something up.
Katsushika Hokusai - The Ghost of Oiwa
A samurai married Oiwa, daughter of a warrior family. But then he killed her with poison and she hunated him.
Emma Helle - The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife
In Helle’s version, a woman is experiencing sexual delight along with the sea creatures.
Shit, I might have to find some alternate hosting for this. For now, it’s on Wikipedia so look it up.
In Hokusai’s lifetime, erotic prints and books were illegal but the laws weren’t always enforced.
Masami Teraoka - Sarah and Octopus / Seventh Heaven
The artist thought that Sarah really ought to use a condom.
Chiho Aoshima - A Contented Skull
Chiho Aoshima combines the aesthetics of shōjo, that is to say, anime and manga made with that teenage girl demographic in mind, and superflat, the art style of Takashi Murakami, and then uses the style of an ukiyo-e print.
Kotoharu Gotōge - Kimetsu no Yaiba: Demon Slayer Mugen Train
In the Taishō era, that period from 1912 to 1926 where Japan went from backwards fiefdoms to imperial power, Kamado Tanjirō’s family was killed by demons and he joined a secret society devoted to fighting them with the power of martial arts prowess. The setting allowed for a combination of technology, like the train, combined with traditional Japanese clothing.
Manga in the days of Hokusai referred to any informal drawing but nowadays, it refers to any story told in multiple panels.
Artist unknown - Female ghost in the moonlight
Ubume are the ghosts of women who die in childbirth, typically clutching a ghost. She’d pass it on to passersby and sometimes they’d be crushed by a heavy falling object or maybe they’d just find that the bundle they’re holding is just a rock or a bunch of sticks and leaves.
Katsushika Hokusai - Nanba no Rokurō Tsunetō
The 12th century warrior Nanba no Rokurō received a prophecy from the dragon kingdom hidden behind the Nunobiki Falls and was struck down by a lightning bolt as punishment for revealing said prophecy.
Utagawa Kuniyoshi - Huangxin, Guardian of Three Mountains
Utagawa Kuniyoshi - Shi Yong, the Stone General
Utagawa Kuniyoshi - Saginoike Heikurō
A story tells of Saginoke Heikurō defeating with his bare hands a giant serpent that attacked him while he was fishing. Later, he became a samurai.
Joyce Kozloff - Boys’ Art no. 2: Nagasaki
She took a 18th century map of Nagasaki and adds childhood drawings done by her brother and by her son and figures from high culture and pop culture.
Teisai Hokuba - Nanba Rokurō Tsunetō and the Ghost of Akugenda Yoshihira
Katsushika Hokusai - The Night Attack in Act XI of the Storehouse of Loyal Retainers
In the final act, our heroes, the forty seven rōnin, disguise themselves as firefighters and attack the enemy’s manor. In the MFA’s collection, a part of the print is missing so they fill in the void with a photograph of someone else’s print.
Katsushika Hokusai - Ki no Natora and Ōtomo no Yoshio Wrestling
The most important sumō match in history. Even more important than Clobbersaurus. Emperor Montoku decided his successor would be the winner of a match between his two sons. The undedog Yoshio won and became Emperor.
Katsushika Hokusai - Watanabe no Gengo Tsuna and Inokuma Nyūdō Raiun
Katsushika Hokusai - Oni Kojima Yatarō and Saihō-in Akabōzu
Manjirō Hokuga - Illustration from the book The Strange Tale of the Cresecent Moon Bow: The Wolf Yamao Attacks A Giant Serpent on Behalf of His Master and Leaves his Bones in the Mountains
Katsushika Hokki - In The Play Honchō Furisode no Hajime, Susanoo no Mikoto Subudes the Monsters
This print was banned a few days later.
Totoya Hokkei - Liu Bang Kills The White Surpant
Liu Bang was the first Emperor of the Han Dynasty (this is actual history) and fought a giant white serpent with poison breath (this didn’t happen in real life). The poems, which can hardly be seen, describe dragon-shaped clouds over pine trees.
Utagawa Yoshitsuya - Namba Rokurō Tsunetō, by order of Naidaijiin Shigemori, Enters the Pool of Nunobiki Waterfall and Comes to the Dragon Waterfall
Utagawa Kuniyoshi - The Former Emperor [Sutoku] From Sanuki Sends His Retainres to Rescue Tametomo
Utagawa Kuniyoshi - On The Sea at Mizumata in Higo Province, Tamatomo Encounters A Storm
Katsushika Hokusai - Zhong Kui, the Demon Queller
Zhong Kui was cheated out of his government position, killed himself, and as a ghost, vowed to protect the world from demons that cause disease and misfortune. To display his image was to ward off bad luck. Hokusai painted him with red ink because red is the color of life and luck.
burning question: Can the Gummi Worms really live in peace with the Marshmallow Chicks?
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Date: 2023-07-26 02:10 pm (UTC)I can't take them all in at once--I've maybe looked at the first quarter and then scrolled quickly through the rest, but even that first quarter were really marvelous to look at. I like the one that shows the tsunami like grabby hands, and I like Nichiren writing the sutra on the waves--cool idea, and great execution. And many of the fish I love :-)
no subject
Date: 2023-07-27 03:08 am (UTC)