>> |
Anonymous
Katsushika Kokusai was one of the most significant and creative woodblock printmakers of the first half of the nineteenth century. Recognized as a leading artist of the Ukiyo-e School, the most popular translation of Ukioy-e being pictures of the gloating world, Hokusais master was the eminent artist Shunsho. He worked during a period when art was made for and by the common peopleartisans, traders and city dwellers. Since this work was widely availabledue to its reproducibilityit was bound by the strictures of changing fashion. Popular prints featured courtesans and actors of the Kabuki theatre. Kokusai worked on such images until 1794. In 1798 he began a series of views of Edo, which formed a precursor to his serious interest in landscape. Through this subject, Hokusai exercised his artistic sensitivity and imagination, rejecting the demand for the increasing garishness of theatrical subject matter. This demand ceased with the end of the eighteenth century and Kokusais prints, such as The Great Wave of Kanagawa, became sought after. It is an ingenious and dramatic scene, the fishing boat and Mount Fuji itself are rendered tiny in the presence of the wall of water, threatening to break.
|