Good Hokusai: Exhibition Analysis Essay Example

Katsushika Hokusai is a Japanese artist who has many works that are at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Among them, his most recognizable woodblock print, Under the Wave of Kanagawa. It is also know as the Great Wave, from his series Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji. Many will know this image as it because it has been on posters, tee shirts places to show the image to the public. Few know the work belongs to Hokusai. Looking similar to Great Wave, both in color and in detail, is, Tsukuda-Jima in Musashi Province. A woodblock printing with ink shows fishermen in their boats. Using white and blue ink like Great Wave it is very nice to look at. A large mountain, probably Mount Fuji, can be seen in the background
Also in the exhibition is Fine Wind, Clear Weather. It is also a woodblock print, ink color on paper from the edo period. Different from Great Wave, it is a picture of land, and is less detailed. Great Wave is a large picture of big waves. The details can be seen easily. Fine Wind, Clear Weather shows a tall red mountain, with tiny trees at the bottom which is where the most detail is. Hokusai also has an eight-panel folding screen called Phoenix as a part of the exhibition. Featuring ink, color, and even sprinkled gold on paper, Phoenix appears to be from a different time than Fine Wind, Clear Weather, though it is closer in looks to Great Wave. The detailing is fine. The background looks textured and the phoenix’s great eye is very detailed too. The feathers are long and grand looking. It is a very nice looking piece of art.
The exhibition does not only have paintings on panels, but also paintings on other surfaces. For example, Dragon and Snake is a painting on a paper lantern. The dragon looks a lot like other things Hokusai has done. He seems to work a lot in fantasy. Many artists do this. Similar to this fantastic style, though represented on a silk plain weave with ink and color, is Gift Cover with Mythological Lion. The silk square itself is very fine, making one wonder if Hokusai preferred to work with the very sturdy, in wood blocks, or the very dainty, in silk squares. The background shows many brightly colored flowers, while in the center a lion with a face and claws like a lion, seems to almost dance while staring at the viewer. Hokusai uses his imagination again inThe Ghost of Kohada Koheiji, a piece from the series, One Hundred Ghost Stories, which is also featured in the exhibition. Another woodblock printing with ink, a favorite of Hokusai’s, the image shows a skeleton’s head not a ghost and its bony fingers grabbing onto string. The skeleton still has its human eyeballs. We do not see this in normal pictures of skeletons which shows Hokusai’s imagination again.
It is clear by the collection Hokusai spent his career showing his imagination and working with materials he liked. Woodblock printings were the ones he seemed to like best. His imagination took over when he made art which happens a lot with artists. Some of his works border between reality and imagination. Others, such as his Mount Fuji collection just show stories of nature and traveling. Regardless of the medium or the method in which he used to show his art and stories it was showed his imagination and how much detail he could give the art he loved. In some cases it could be both. The exhibition flowed and represented Hokusai’s art well.