Hokusai’s Evolution

Introduction

The design of the new thousand-yen banknote being issued in July 2024 incorporates “Under the Wave off Kanagawa” from the series Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji. Familiar as one of Hokusai’s best-known works, the print is the product of the artist’s insatiable curiosity in seeking to learn various painting techniques and desire to expand the scope of his own artistry.
Hokusai absorbed the most painting techniques during the prime of his life—the period when he used the art names Shunrō and Sōri leading up to about the age of 44. Mastering many painting styles as his own evolved, he studied the Kanō school, the Tosa school, and Chinese-style kara-e painting and, as Tawaraya Sōri II, carried on the traditions of the Rinpa school. He appears to have been especially interested in Western-style painting, even producing works like A Perspective Picture of the Downhill Attack at the Battle of Ichinotani that incorporated techniques of linear perspective during his Shunrō period. Hokusai continued to enthusiastically incorporate elements of Western-style painting in his work, building the foundation that resulted in Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji during the early Tenpō era and other landscape print series.
The distinctive portrayal of the wave in “Under the Wave Off Kanagawa” marks a crucial point in Hokusai’s evolution. Hokusai painted waves over the course of decades, their aspect ever evolving. In Strange Tales of the Crescent Moon: A Supplementary Biography of Chinzei Hachirō Tametomo, he depicted successive waves capable of swallowing ships and soldiers, while in Random Drawings by Hokusai he presented two types of waves in “Approaching Waves” and “Retreating Waves.” His depiction of waves reached a certain zenith with “Under the Wave Off Kanagawa,” but Hokusai continued seeking to evolve. In “Fuji from the Sea,” from his subsequent One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji, he produced a bold work that further expanded the scale of the great wave. Roughly a decade later, while visiting Obuse in Shinano Province, he produced ceiling panel paintings known as Masculine Waves and Feminine Waves for the Kanmachi Festival Cart. Unlike Hokusai’s landscape prints, these works—also known collectively as Angry Waves—are impressionistic depictions of the waves themselves. Hokusai’s waves evolved, finally reaching their culmination in these masterworks.
In this exhibition, we reflect on Hokusai’s seventy-year career to get at the heart of this painter who sought to constantly evolve. The issuing of the new banknotes makes Hokusai’s work even more accessible, and we hope you enjoy the many works on exhibit here.
Finally, we wish to express our heartfelt gratitude to the Japan Ukiyo-e Museum for generously providing valuable works of art to be shown at this exhibition and to everyone whose cooperation made it possible.