Woodcut master Hokusai

““When I am 80 you will see real progress. At 90 I shall have cut my way deeply into the mystery of life itself. At 100, I shall be a marvelous artist. At 110, everything I create; a dot, a line, will jump to life as never before. To all of you who are going to live as long as I do, I promise to keep my word. I am writing this in my old age.””

I think you will enjoy this excursion around the art of Hokusai.

And, as usual, I wanted to find out more about this Japanese master (1759-1849), having only been familiar with his famous tsunami of The Great Wave off Kanagawa and some of the scenes from his series Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji :

He was a master of the woodblock cut.

In the early 1800s, among his many images was a series of images for aspiring artists to copy. These works were compiled into a book, Hokusai Manga, and document one of the earliest forms of Manga art. I found these quite charming.

source: https://mymodernmet.com/katsushika-hokusai-the-great-wave/

If you are at all intrigued with his art and the Japanese art of woodblock prints, head on over to this free site at Library of Congress.

“Art’s meaning lies not only in what it looks like, but in how it circulates.”