Posted on by gakyōrōjin 画狂老人

Must see: Hokusai at the Sumida Hokusai Museum, best before July 24th

After quite some time, Japan reopened again for small groups of foreigners, and I was one of them. I also believe that it cannot have been a coincidence that I was not only welcomed by my in-laws but also by Hokusai himself. Indeed, I had an opportunity to see and enjoy two exhibitions devoted to the Master. One would close down the day after my arrival, the other opened just before my departure.

Showing Hokusai prints, illustrated books and a number of paintings all from the British Museum collection, the first one, at the Suntory Museum of Art, also displayed a few ‘masterpieces of painting from collections in Japan.’ Could it be that the organizers were afraid that the audience would be disappointed with the 108 works on loan from the BM, including one of the five best copies of the Wave off the Coast of Kanagawa in existence? Or that it would fail to recognize the exceptional strength in the painting of the demon inhabitants of Onoshima, in vain trying to pull the string of Minamoto Tametomo’s bow, complemented with an inscription by Kyokutei Bakin (曲亭馬琴)? The painting celebrating the completion of the novel Strange Tales of the Crescent Moon, Chinsetsu yumiharizuki (椿説弓張月, 5 parts, 1807-1811) was even displayed together with the mirrored image from the first part of the book that was the source for the painting. Or would it maybe overlook the elegance of the rather impromptu portrayal of the poem diviner that Hokusai made his first work of the brush in the New Year of 1827? Then there were also three paintings from his 88th year (when Hokusai was extremely productive, making at least some thirty paintings), one of a couple of ducks in the water, another of a cormorant on a wooden pole, and then one of the Chinese philosopher Sōshi (荘子, 胡蝶の夢) with a butterfly hoovering over his head – as he once woke up after dreaming of a butterfly and being unable to discern whether he had become that butterfly, or whether that butterfly had assumed his form. Sure, it was nice and good to see all these works again, though nothing new for me, even among the seven works from Japanese collections.

Indeed, for a real and most welcome surprise, I had to wait until the day before my departure, when I had a chance to see the very nice exhibition of demons in the oeuvre of Hokusai at the Sumida Hokusai Museum (すみだ北斎美術館 until 28 August). Amongst the large and comprehensive selection of plates from, among others, the various Manga volumes (北斎漫画, 27 plates from vols. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 9, 10, 11 and 12), the Quick Guide to Drawing Vol. 4, Hayashinan yonpen Ehon hayabiki (早指南四編画本早引, 1817), and the later Ehon hayabiki Vol. 2 (画本早引二編, 1819), all with their modest basic tints of rose and grey, as well as those from the Illustrated Life of Shakyamuni, Shaka goichidaiki zue (釈迦御一代記圖繪, 6 plates, 1845), just in black and white, sumizuri, the three full colour prints of the One Hundred Ghost Stories, Hyaku monogatari (百物語) of late 1831 (Shunen しうねん, Sara yashiki さらやしき, and Warai Hannya 笑ひはんにや) almost light up on the walls as it were.

Katsushika Hokusai, Dōjōji, The Sumida Hokusai Museum

However, the great surprise is a painting on Dōjōji (道成寺), the story about the young monk Anchin who used to stay with the headman of the village of Masago when making his annual pilgrimage to Kumano, whose daughter fell in love with him and begged him to marry her. This, of course, he refused to do, but she followed him to the Dōjōji Temple where he eventually hid from her under the temple bell. When she found out about his hiding place, she turned into a dragon and coiled herself around it, thus not only destroying the bell with her heat, but also burning Anchin to dust as well as perishing herself in the molten bell.

In Hokusai’s painting the dancer impersonating the young woman has adopted the appearance of a female demon with long waving hair, wearing a Ja mask, rather evoking a snake demon than the more common female Hannya demon, and holding onto a pillar of the temple, a red and white staff in his raised right hand. He is dressed as a Shirabyōshi dancer, wearing a red hakama over a white kimono. The painting in ink and pigments on paper measures 823 x 263 mms. and is signed Hokusai ga (北斎画), with two seals reading Tatsu/masa (辰政), suggesting a dating in the Bunka period, but before 1810, when Hokusai started using the name of Taito (戴斗). Please note: the painting is only on display until July 24th, when it will be replaced by a photographic reproduction.

The story is obviously derived from the Nō repertoire but it was also the source for various dance dramas in kabuki. Though difficult to proof – there are quite a few performances of Dōjōji plays in early Bunka — it seems most tempting to relate the painting to the performance of Sugata hanamusume Dōjōji, 容艶花娘道成寺, in XI/1807 at the Nakamura Theatre (中村座, KN 5:404). This performance was in so far special, as Segawa Rokō III (瀬川路考, 1751-1810), who had just before taken the name of Senjo (仙女) so as to prepare for retirement, played the role of Kiyohime, wearing a mask to make her look like a snake, which is the Ja mask in the painting, while Segawa Michinosuke (瀬川路之助, 1782-1812), who had just been given the name of Rokō IV, played the role of the monk Anchin.

The fact that Hokusai also made a print of Segawa Michinosuke, in the role of Komume (女房小梅), the wife of Ume no Yoshibei (梅の由兵衛), played by Sawamura Gennosuke, after an unrecorded performance of Sumida no haru geisha katagi (隅田春妓女容性) in the same year 1807, might well suggest some special relation between Hokusai and Michinosuke, even more so as this diptych composition represents the only known example of a traditional print of actors since Hokusai left the Katsukawa atelier. This diptych composition is apparently only reproduced in my Hokusai. A Guide to the Serial Graphics (1974), Plates 34 and 35, only the Michinosuke sheet being known in a Japanese collection.

When the museum acquired the painting, it had a very simple mounting (also on display) that hardly supported the vivid sense of drama in the painting. The museum therefore decided to have it remounted with a very appropriate silk brocade with repeated motifs of dragons, also giving it much wider margins right and left that really make the painting stand out, a well-deserved upgrade as it were. This is the first time it is shown at the Sumida Hokusai Museum and, again, only on show until July 24th.        A 192 page catalogue complements the exhibition, published by Kodansha and available at 2.640円 (ISBN 978-4-06528083-6).

I am grateful to the Sumida Hokusai Museum for allowing me to use their photographs of the painting.

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Hokusai’s View of Delft

Or is it The Hague? From the rather typical buildings in Hokusai’s scheme of Western perspective that he includes in his Hokusai manga volume 3 of 1815, it is quite obvious that his original inspiration was some European optical print. From the 1730s, the Dutch introduced such prints, produced in London (most by Robert Sayer, Henry Overton, and Carington Bowles), Paris (Chéreau, Daumont, and Basset), and Augsburg (G.B. Probst), in quite large numbers in Japan, where they met with an eager audience. When they reached Edo, they helped Okumura Masanobu develop his so-called ‘perspective views,’ ukie 浮絵, of the interiors of the kabuki theatre and views of the main street of the Yoshiwara pleasure quarters around 1739, and later also of other subjects. Although he himself always denied this, the young painter Maruyama Ōkyo 1733-1795 is believed to have made quite a number of Japanese views in this manner for some Kyoto merchant of toys who also sold the necessary apparatus to view these ‘perspective views’ best.

Katsushika Hokusai, The principle of Western perspective from the Hokusai manga, vol. 3 Nagoya: Eirakuya Tōshirō, 1815

I always imagined that Hokusai based his scheme of the Western principles of perspective on some Japanese print and figured that Utagawa Toyoharu’s Perspective view of a harbour in the Southeast of Holland, Ukie Oranda tōnan minato no zu (浮繪和蘭陀國東南港圖) would be the most likely example. Hokusai would then have viewed the Toyoharu print through a zograscope, the apparatus that we can also see in some Harunobu print (see the 2002 Chiba City Museum Harunobu exhibition catalogue, no. 134), which gives a mirrored image. He then used one of the buildings and just two of the trees. This would have sufficed for his immediate purpose of making a scheme that would just show the converging lines towards a vanishing point on the horizon, as is seen on the right-hand page.

Utagawa Toyoharu, Ukie Orandakoku tōnan no minato no zu Edo: Nishimuraya Yohachi, 1770s Courtesy the Trustees of the British Museum (2004,0505,0.1)

To the right in that diagram, he specifies that ’When you start here with a height of three inches’ (koko nite sansun no takasa ni kakan toki ha こゝにて三寸のたかさにか々んときは) to continue at the first line that ‘this is then one inch’ (koko nite issun nari こゝにて一寸也). He then goes on, from top down, explaining ‘The rule of dividing into three’ (mitsuwari no hō 三ツわりの法), which means that ‘You should make the sky two’ (futatsu wo ame to subeshi 二ツを天とすべし), and then ‘the earth becomes one’ (hitotsu wo chi to nasu nari 一ツを地となす也). And the earth is thus printed in grey, whereas the top two horizontal bands, making up the sky, are left blank.

On the left-hand page, Hokusai demonstrates how this would work, drawing a simple scene of a two-storey building, two trees, three figures, and a ship on the horizon. On the front of the house, he notes that ‘the windows are nine tenths’ (kyūbun no mado ha 九分のまどは), whereas they are only ‘three tenths’ (sanbun 三分) on the side, and by the trees he just adds the word ‘tree’ (ki 木). The set of converging lines to the left have the notes ‘what painting looks like’ (kaku no gotoshi かくのごとし) and ‘you should paint in accord with the lines’ (wari no suji ni awase kakubeshi わりのすじにあわせかくべし). Especially from the trees and the standing figures, it becomes clear that we see objects that are nearby larger than those more distant.

View of the Canal and the Municipal Cannon Foundry of The Hague

Then, apart from the circumstance that we do have some rivers but no harbours in the southeast of the country, the question, of course, remains what did Toyoharu take as his example. Until recently I imagined that he would have been familiar with the print of a View of the canal and the municipal cannon foundry of The Hague, Vue du Canal et de l’Hotel de Fonderie de canon a la Haye, published in Paris by Basset at the rue St Jacques à St Nicolas. Until 1660, cannons were founded at the Kloosterkerk, a church indeed, on the Mauritskade at The Hague and the canal was specifically made around 1580 so as to transport the cannons to other cities in the provinces of Holland and West Frisia. Later, the foundry was moved to a new and impressive building on the Nieuwe Uitleg, designed by Pieter Post (1608-1669), and that is the building in this print. But then, there is a rather wide sidewalk along the foundry and the other buildings further down, with quite some people on it, then the row of trees, and only then the canal. But Toyoharu’s print has water both to the right and to the left of the row of buildings. For Hokusai’s view this wouldn’t matter. For the sake of making a clear and directly understandable diagram, as said above, he just needs one building to the right, then the sidewalk with only three persons, and he reduces the row of trees to only two.

Isaac van Haastert, View of the Munition Depot of the City of Delft

Recently, I found some optical print with a View of the Munition Depot of the City of Delft, Vuë du Magazin de Munition de la Ville de Delft, designed by the Delft painter Isaac van Haastert (1753-1834) and made into a copperplate by Johann Jacob Stelzer (1706-1780), published by Georg Balthasar Probst (1732-1801) of Augsburg. As this has the water of the river Schie split into two and streaming on both sides of the central buildings, it seems more plausible to associate this view with the Toyoharu print. The ‘Munition Depot’ or Armamentarium, the building figuring conspicuously in the centre, dates from 1601 and still survives today, almost in its original form, with the Lange Geer to the right and the Oude Delft to the left—as it is, the printed image is not mirrored. Its location is near the Rotterdam and Schiedam city gates as well as nearby the former city timberyard for the Delfshaven harbour. The view incorporates an arched bridge in the distance and the tower of the old city hall, both surviving today, that we also can see somewhat adapted in the Toyoharu print.

I must now add that this identification of the Armamentarium as the source for the Toyoharu print was already earlier made by Oka Yasumasa in his Meganee shinkō. Tokyo: Chikuma Shobō, 1992, 172 (岡泰正､『めがね絵新考』東京:筑摩書房) — though not associating the plate with Hokusai’s diagram. Anyway, I should have checked that book which I have, much earlier, of course.

The Armatarium now

So what did Hokusai see? If it was the Toyoharu print, he at least must have viewed it through a zograscope to get the building to the right and the trees to the left, and making the canal into a sidewalk. And the ‘harbour’ mentioned in the title would have inspired him to include a ship on the horizon. If it were the View of the canal and the municipal cannon foundry of The Hague, the sidewalk was there already and he must have viewed it through a zograscope to have the building to the right and the trees to the left. Moreover, he just focused on one building only and just two trees. And if he by chance had an opportunity to look at the print of the View of the Munition Depot of the City of Delft, again through his zograscope, the prominent position of the building would probably make this a more likely example to come to his composition that just served to illustrate the principles of Western perspective. Anyway, as for the Hokusai perspective diagram, it will remain a problem to definitively associate this with what its model was. For Toyoharu it seems most likely that it was the Delft view designed by Van Haastert. As for Hokusai, we cannot totally ignore the view of the The Hague foundry, but also the Delft view cannot be ruled out.

What remains is the group of South Sea Islanders in the lower half of this double-page composition. This is not merely a confirmation that we are here dealing with foreign subjects or influences, there is more to be said on them, but that has to wait for some next time.

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Hokusai’s Self-portrait and his Sōhitsu Gafu

We like mysteries, don’t we? Today we go for this fabulous Hokusai self-portrait as a drawing at the end of a letter to … some unidentified publisher. It is signed Hachiemon 八右衛門 with the seal Manji 卍, adding his age as 83 years old 八十三歳, so we know this must date from 1842. Even when we have a translation of the text of the letter – or what remains of the letter – it just stops there. Everybody seems to love the mystery of the addressee – much like what the charm of Beethovens letter to ‘die unsterbliche Geliebte’ is, though there have at least been many speculations. But nobody (as far as I am aware) ever made an attempt to identify the publisher to whom this letter was sent.* 

Hokusai Self-portrait aged 83 years National Museum of Ethnology, Leiden

But it cannot really be that difficult, as the letter reads:

Well then, the sketches in this volume were made when I was about forty-one or forty-two; moreover, a number of them duplicates one another. After all these years some of them might be better worked out. The remainder, which you may smile about, should be regarded as immature work from the past.**

There is only one volume of various sketches made into a book and dating from post 1842, thus meeting all the requirements. That is the Manji-ō sōhitsu gafu『卍翁艸筆畫譜』published by Kikuya Kōsaburō 菊屋幸三郎 of Edo. There is no other possible contender, no mistake, it is as simple as that. The Sōhitsu gafu has 17 single and 14 double-page illustrations of various subjects, a perfect mixture for an ‘album of paintings’ as we should understand the common Japanese concept of the ‘gafu’ in the title. 

Looking at the plates raises two questions. One concerns the date of the drawings Hokusai mentions. He maintains that these would date from when he was forty-one or two, which would be in Kyōwa, 1800 or 1801, which I cannot believe. They rather seem to date from Bunka, the late 1810s, when he worked on the final volumes of the Hokusai manga, the Hokusai gashiki and the Hokusai soga – leftovers maybe? Another question concerns the fire of 1839 when he was living at Daruma Yokochō 達磨横町 in Azumabashi itchōme, Sumidaku 墨田区吾妻橋一丁目 when he could just grasp his brushes and get safely out of his studio himself, but would loose all his sketches and drawings in the fire, as the Katsushika Hokusai den (上64b-65b) informs us and which mostly came to us through De Goncourt (p. 242). If this were altogether correct and reliable, it seems quite impossible that Hokusai would three years later be sending some thirty plus drawings dating from ‘when I was about forty-one or forty-two.’

The colophon

Let us now have a closer look at the album that Kikuya Kōsaburō made out of the sketches that Hokusai sent him together with this letter, the Manji-ō sōhitsu gafu. The illustrations are, quite remarkably, just in line with supporting accents in grey, something quite unprecedented, and of a very different nature from what we see in the Hundred Views of Fuji 富嶽百景 albums. According to the colophon, the album was published in Tenpō 14, 1843, year of the Hare, first month, lucky day of the Dragon (Tenpō jūyonsai mizunoto u shoshun kichi tatsu hasshi 天保十四歳癸卯初春吉辰發市). And we find the date of 1843 duly in all literature, as if it shouldn’t puzzle us to find a preface to the volume signed by Tōjō Kindai 1795-1878, the father of Kikuya, signed ‘composed by the Old Kindai, father of the publisher Kōshi, with seal: Kōshizō (Kindai rōjin Tōjō Kōshizō no chichi sen, s: Kōshizō 琴臺老人東條耕子藏父撰 印: 耕子藏) that is surprisingly dated Tenpō, Spring of the year of the Dragon, 1832 (Tenpō mizunoe tatsu no haru 天保壬辰之春) – with the combination mizunoe tatsu unmistakably indicating the year 1832. However, as he writes that the volume was given the title of Album of Paintings with a Free Brush by the Old Manji, this must be a mistake, as Hokusai only announced his change of name to Manji in 1834. The mistake must be in the cyclical date, writing mizunoe tatsu instead of kinoe tatsu 甲辰, which gives 1844. 

What happened is this: Kikuya had the drawings that Hokusai sent him worked out and all the blocks had been cut by Suzuki Eijirō (chōkoku 鈴木榮次郞彫刻), even the colophon page with the date of Tenpō 14, First month of 1843. But we are also in the heydays of the Tenpō Reforms 天保の改革 promulgated on 22/V/1841. And from XII/1838 it had been forbidden to display and sell picture books – and the Manji-ō sōhitsu gafu is a picture book – and erotic works in the front of the shop, yes these were difficult times. Hoping to be on the safe side with his plates printed in line and just with grey tones, he then still thought it wiser to wait for better times, maybe next year, and so in the end he dared publish the book in the First month of 1844, as indicated in the preface. A few years later, as the Tenpō Reforms became less strict, around 1847, he also took the risk to bring out a version in colours, under the title Hokusai manga Sōhitsu no bu 北斎漫畫草筆之部.

* I identified the addressee before, but in more obscure locations.

**I was told that Georg Baselitz was inspired to make a series of quite impressive drawings based on the portrait and the translation that he saw in my 1991 Royal Academy exhibition catalogue – he donated ten of these to the British Museum and another ten to the Met, but forgot to give me one.

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When Hokusai’s Mount Fuji Became Second to None

As the advert for the Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji appeared in the 1st Month of 1831 in Part 12 of Ryūtei Tanehiko’s 柳亭種彦 (1783-1842) Shōhon jitate『正本製』, it was indicated that what we now usually read as Fugaku 富嶽 should be read as ‘Fuji.’ It is now difficult to know whether this was meant to help the public that might have some problem with the reading of the less common character 嶽, or whether it was, indeed, Hokusai’s or the publisher’s idea that we should read the series-title 富嶽三十六景 as Fuji sanjūrokkei.

The problem – or the question at least – comes up again in 1834 when the first part of his One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji is published, where we similarly, and correctly, usually transcribe the title 富嶽百景 as Fugaku hyakkei. That this is correct can be inferred from the small leaflet that the publishers issued in the Autumn of 1833, announcing the forthcoming album 冨嶽百景 with the indication in furigana that this should be read as ふがくひやくけい, Fugaku hyakkei that is, by ’the Old Man Iitsu formerly Hokusai’ 前北斎為一老翁 to be transcribed as saki no Hokusai Iitsu rōō. 

The leaflet announcing the forthcoming publication of the Fugaku hyakkei, handed to potential buyers in late 1833

It cannot be doubted that Ryūtei Tanehiko in his preface to the Fugaku hyakkei Part 1 knew that Hokusai used the characters 不二, to be read as Fuji, but literally meaning ’not’ and ‘two,’ or ‘second to none,’ often also translated as ‘peerless,’ for each of the titles of his plates. Indeed, also Tanehiko refers to the mountain as Second to None.

Interestingly, Hokusai used this spelling of the mountain’s name also in the prints in the final instalment of his Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji series – the ten prints that all have a line-block printed in black from the start. These are Minobugawa ura Fuji 身延川裏不二; Tōkaidō Shinagawa Atagoyama no Fuji 東海道品川御殿山ノ不二; Senju kagai yori chōbō no Fuji 従千住花街眺望ノ不二; and Tōkaidō Kanaya no Fuji 東海道金谷ノ不二 . It would even seem that these five prints were the last five designs that he made, not only introducing the spelling of Fuji as Second to None, as in the Fugaku hyakkei volumes, but also indicating for the first time in the titles of the series, that it was the ‘Second-to-None Mountain’ seen from here, or seen there. Until then, the mountain was not mentioned in any of the preceding fourty-one print titles.

This also corroborates that the last instalment of the Fuji series coincides with Hokusai working on his One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji albums, in 1833 or 1834. 

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Hokusai Autobiography or What did Hokusai expect his art to be like at age 86?

Nobody will ever forget these lines once you have read them. That artist who was confident that he would ‘at ninety have got even closer to the essence of art, and at the age of one hundred I will reach a magnificent level, and at a hundred and ten, each dot and each line will be alive.’ Unforgettable words written by the 75 years old Katsushika Hokusai in his One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji, Fugaku hyakkei, coming out in the third month of 1834.

Personally I consider these three-volumes Hokusai’s greatest in the category of books that he largely composed himself. Judging from its popularity among the early Parisian collectors, they too considered it an absolute must for any collector of Japanese art – it ranks first when making an inventory of all those wonderful early twentieth century Parisian auction catalogues (and in case you wonder, the Bunpō gafu volumes rank second, Sukenobu’s Hyakunin jorō shinasadame third, the Hokusai manga volumes fourth, and Kitao Shigemasa’s Seirō bijin awase sugata kagami fifth). It can thus hardly come as a surprise that the short autobiography from the Fugaku hyakkei was translated into French as early as in 1883 in Louis Gonse’s l’Art japonais (Vol 1, pp 286f). The text, just slightly adapted by Edmond de Goncourt – with the assistance of Hayashi Tadamasa? – would then reach an even larger audience as it was cited in his Hokousaï of 1896 (p. 261):

Depuis l’âge de six ans, j’avais la manie de dessiner la forme des objets. Vers l’âge de cinquante ans, j’avais publié une infinité de dessins, mais tout ce que j’ai produit avant l’âge de soixante-dix ans, ne vaut pas la peine d’être compté. C’est à l’âge de soixante-treize ans, que j’ai compris à peu près la structure de la nature vraie, des animaux, des herbes, des arbres, des oiseaux, des poisons et des insects.

Par conséquent, à l’âge de quatre-vingts ans, j’aurai fait encore plus de progrès; à quatre-vingt-dix ans je pénétrerai le mystère des choses; à cent ans je serai décidément parvenu à un degré de merveille, et quand j’aurai cent dix ans, chez moi, soit un point, soit une ligne, tout sera vivant;

Je demande à ceux qui vivront autant que moi, de voir si je tiens ma parole. Écrit à l’âge de soixante-quinze ans par moi, autrefois Hokousaï, aujourd’hui Gwakiô Rôjin, le vieillard fou de dessin.

The text in the second column from the right as it appears in the colophon sheet of the One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji, courtesy National Museum of Ethnology, Leiden

My own most recent translation reads:

From the age of six I had already been drawing all kinds of things. Although I had really made many designs from the time I was fifty [1809], none of my works until my seventieth [1829] is really worth counting. It was only from the age of seventy-three [1832] that I have finally understood the true forms of animals, insects and fish, and the nature of plants and trees. Consequently, I will have made more and more progress by the age of eighty [1839], and at ninety [1849 – the year Hokusai died] I will have got even closer to the essence of art. At the age of one hundred I will reach a magnificent level, and at a hundred and ten each dot and each line will be alive. I would like to ask those who outlive me to see whether I have not spoken idly. Gakyōrōjin Manji

… actually, I am cheating a little, I should admit, this translation still had the mistaken ‘age of eighty-six’ [1845] instead of the correct ‘age of eighty’ – and that is the subject here. It was only quite recently that I discovered this widespread mistake when I first compared one of the many transcriptions of this text in Japanese handbooks with the original.

This cannot, of course, be an excuse, but like many of my colleagues, I only made my translations (see below) using very reliable sources, such as Suzuki Jūzō’s Fugaku hyakkei (Tokyo: Iwasaki Bijutsusha, 1972, p 189f, reprinted in 1986; his essay also reprinted in his Ehon to ukiyoe (Tokyo: Bijutsu Shuppansha, 1979, p 311), or Oka Isaburō in the Hokusai volume in the Ukiyoe Taikei series (Tokyo: Shūeisha, 1975, p 88), or Nagata Seiji in the Hokusai volume in the Ukiyoe hakka series (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1984, p 137), or his Katsushika Hokusai nenpu (Tokyo: Sansai Shinsha, 1985, p 117), or even his revised Katsushika Hokusai nenpu in the Hokusai kenkyū magazine, no. 22, 1997, p 148 – all, most reliable sources as you would agree, I guess. And they all make the same mistake of reading ‘eighty-six’ instead of ‘eighty years.’

I still don’t know who did it, could it really have been Suzuki sensei (is this a case of even Homer nods?) who decided to transcribe the text himself, rather than copy it from Narazaki Muneshige who had already in 1944 provided a perfect transcription in his Hokusai ron (Tokyo:  Atoriesha, 1944, p 6) or even go back to Iijima’s Katsushika Hokusai den of 1893 (Vol 1 p 52b)? Anyway, apart from Willem van Gulik (1982 and 2020), Gian Carlo Calza (2003), and myself (1988, 1991, and 2018), it were mostly Japanese writers, such as Oka Isaburō (1975), Nagata Seiji (1984, 1985, 1997, and 2005), Sakai Gankow (1993), Kōno Motoaki (1996), and Asano Shūgō (ironically in his Hokusai ketteiban, or Hokusai The Final Edition of 2010, p 177), who fell victim to this slight but very meaningful mis-transcription. What seems to have happened is that someone in transcribing the text initially read 八十六 for 八十才 (see above in the text in the picture, at the same height as the 狂 of the signature 画狂老人卍) then quickly corrected the 六 into 才, and then left both, to make the 八十六才 ‘age of eighty-six’ that from then started to corrupt this highly personal observation on his art by the artist himself.

The correct transcription of the text by Nagata Seiji, as he came to realize his earlier mistakes in 2008, in Hokusai kenkyu 42

I will continue my search for the original source of the mistake and keep updating, no final edition here. Anyway, if you have any of the books or catalogues giving ‘the age of eighty-six’ please cross out the ‘six’ or rather: paint it black.

Posted on by gakyōrōjin 画狂老人

Hokusai’s Great Wave off Kanagawa – Hokusai and Aizurie Part V
🇯🇵「神奈川沖浪裏」製作年考：
北斎と藍擦絵（其の五）

Summarizing the conclusions reached in the four preceding parts, we can give a date of 1830 or Tenpō 1 (天保元年) to the so far identified subjects of Nihonbashi (日本橋), Ōji (王子), Sumidagawa (隅田川), Fukagawa (深川), Shibaura (芝浦), Ōhashi (大橋), Mimeguri (三園), Ueno no hana (上野花), and Yanaka (谷中), all picture envelopes, efūto (繪封筒), measuring 191 x 51 mm., signed Hokusai changing his name to Iitsu (Hokusai aratame Iitsu 北斎改為一), forming part of the series A Hundred Views in the Eastern Capital (Tōto hyakkei 東都百景), published as prints in tones of blue, aizurie, by an unidentified publisher using a seal reading ‘to’ (ト) within a circle. 

Cormorant Fisherman at Kajikazawa in Kai Province, from the Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, 1831
Courtesy Mann Collection

Dating from the same year 1830 are the prints titled Suruga Hill in the Eastern Capital (Tōto Surugadai 東都駿河台), Under the Mannen Bridge in Fukagawa (Fukagawa Mannenbashi no shita 深川万年橋下), The Oval Pine at Aoyama (Aoyama Enza no matsu 青山圓座松), Senjū in Musashi Province (Bushū Senjū 武州千住), In the Hollow of a Wave off the Coast of Kanagawa, popularly known as ‘The Great Wave’ (Kanagawa oki namiura 神奈川沖浪裏), A Shower below the Summit (Sanka hakuu 山下白雨), South Wind at Clear Dawn (Gaifū kaisei 凱風快晴), The ‘Fuji-Viewing’ Plains in Owari Province (Bishū Fujimigahara 尾州富士見原), and The Inume Mountain Pass in Kai Province (Kōshū Inumetōge 甲州犬目峠), all full colour horizontal prints in the ōban format (265 x 390 mm.), signed Hokusai changing his name to Iitsu (Hokusai aratame Iitsu 北斎改為一), forming part of the series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku sanjūrokkei 富嶽三十六景), published by Nishimuraya Yohachi.

Dating from 1831 or Tenpō 2 (天保二年) are ten prints depicting A man washing potatoes in a tub; Mōsō finding a fresh bamboo shoot in the snow; Boats passing under rocky cliffs with a moon in the sky; A Mountain landscape with a bridge across a waterfall; Two fish: a halfbeak and a bream, and a crayfish; Two fish: a sole and a kasago, and two ark shell; Three sparrows and morning glory; A Sparrow trying to catch a fly; Plovers flying over waves, and A Finch on a Hibiscus, all in the koban format (c.227 x 168 mm.) and printed in shades of blue, aizurie, signed the Former Hokusai (saki no Hokusai 前北斎), with various seals among which one that gives Hokusai’s age as 72 years, corresponding to 1831, and published by Moriya Jihei.

Also dating from 1831 are prints of A pilgrim standing on the back of another one and writing on a pillar; Two men working on the covering of a roof with roof tiles; Ebisu catching fish from a boat; A Woman rope-walking and juggling balls; Two men making a large wooden tub; Acrobat performance; A Monk sweeping maple leaves; A Man seated by a tsuitate and chanting from a book; Bushishi on a scroll; A Sparrow by a chestnut; A Woman washing a length of cloth in a stream; A shōjō eating rice cakes and not drinking; Farmers doing the sparrow-dance; and A Shishi lion in a waterfall, all in the narrow upright tanzaku format (c.350 x 67 mm.) and printed in full colour, the first two signed the Former Hokusai (saki no Hokusai 前北斎), the others signed Iitsu, the former Hokusai (saki no Hokusai Iitsu 前北斎為一), published by Moriya Jihei. As these were printed three at a time from an aiban block, there remains at least one more design to be identified.

Dating from the same year 1831 are three prints depicting A tenaga and an ashinaga; A Deer and the full moon; and A Waterfall, in the narrow upright tanzaku format (c.350 x 67 mm.) and printed in shades of blue, aizurie, signed Iitsu, the former Hokusai (saki no Hokusai Iitsu ), published by Moriya Jihei. We cannot know whether these represent a different group or whether they are just an incidental exception within the group of full-colour tanzaku prints mentioned above. 

Still dating from 1831 are ten prints titled The Honganji Temple at Asakusa in the Eastern Capital (Tōto Asakusa Honganji 東都浅草本願寺), Tsukudajima Island in Musashi Province (Buyō Tsukudajima 武揚佃島), Ushibori in Hitachi Province (Jōshū Ushibori 常州牛堀), The Coast at Shichirigahama in Sagami Province (Sōshū Shichirigahama 相洲七里浜), Left of (or: In the Outskirts of) Umezawa in Sagami Province (Sōshū Umezawa no hidari [or: zai] 相洲梅澤左 [or: 在]), Mishimagoe in Kai Province (Kōshū Mishimagoe 甲州三島越), Ejiri in Suruga Province (Sunshū Ejiri 駿州江尻), In the Tōtōmi Mountains (Tōtōmi sanchū 遠江山中), Lake Suwa in Shinano Province (Shinshū Suwako 信州諏訪湖), and Kajikazawa in Kai Province (Kōshū Kajikazawa 甲州石班澤), all horizontal prints in the ōban format (265 x 390 mm.) and printed in shades of blue, aizurie, signed Iitsu, the former Hokusai (saki no Hokusai Iitsu 前北斎為一), forming part of the series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku sanjūrokkei 富嶽三十六景), published by Nishimuraya Yohachi. These are the prints that the publisher Nishimuraya Yohachi announced in I/1831 at the end of the Tanehiko novel. The remaining twenty-six designs in the Fuji series were probably published subsequently, from 1832. Anyway, we now know that the ‘Great Wave’ dates from the year 1830, and that is what we wanted to find out to begin with.

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Hokusai’s Great Wave off Kanagawa – Hokusai and Aizurie Part IV
🇯🇵「神奈川沖浪裏」製作年考：
北斎と藍擦絵（其の四）

In the foregoing parts we have been investigating four series or groups of prints, two of them comprised of aizurie prints exclusively and two other groups with only a part printed as aizurie. In these four groups, we found three different phrasings of Hokusai’s signature, as follows: Hokusai aratame Iitsu (Hokusai changing his name to Iitsu 北斎改為一) on ten prints of the series of Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji and on all of the so far identified nine envelopes from the series titled A Hundred Views of the Eastern Capital. Then there is the signature Saki no Hokusai (the former Hokusai 前の北斎) on all of the prints in blue from an untitled series in the koban format, and on two (of three?) prints from the untitled series in the tanzakuban format. And lastly the signature Saki no Hokusai Iitsu (Iitsu, the former Hokusai 前の北斎為一) to be found on ten aizurie and twenty-six full colour prints of the Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji series, as well as on the three aizurie and on another twelve full colour prints in the group of tanzaku prints.

A View of Tsukudajima Island from the Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, 1831
Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

If we then try to bring some order in these findings, we must agree that a signature stating that ‘Hokusai is changing his name to Iitsu’ (Hokusai aratame Iitsu), obviously predates signatures such as ‘the former Hokusai’ (saki no Hokusai) and ‘Iitsu, the former Hokusai’ (saki no Hokusai Iitsu). We are then fortunate to have a date for the use of the signature of the ‘former Hokusai’ on one of the ten koban aizurie prints, in the form of a seal reading ‘old man of 72 years’ (nanajūni-ō), Hokusai’s age corresponding to the year 1831. It is then tempting to also date the two tanzaku prints with the same signature to the same year 1831.

As for works bearing the signature ‘Iitsu, the former Hokusai,’ we have at least the indication that the ten aizurie prints in the Fuji series were being announced as ‘single sheet prints in blues, each featuring one view and to be issued one after the other’ in the I/1831 announcement issued by the publisher Nishimuraya Yohachi. We may thus safely assume that at least the ten aizurie prints in that series can be dated to 1831. And the seal on one of the aizurie prints indicating Hokusai’s age to be 72 years, mentioned above, just confirms that aizurie printing was being practiced in 1831. This date can thus also safely be given to the three aizurie tanzaku prints signed ‘Iitsu, the former Hokusai’ as well as to the remaining twelve full colour prints in that group which were most likely published in the same year. As for the Fuji series, this was, as a much larger enterprise and still something of an experiment at the time when there was no tradition of larger series of landscape prints yet, probably issued over a period of several years.

What then remains is the series of luxury envelopes issued as aizurie and signed ‘Hokusai changing his name to Iitsu,’ and the ten prints in the Fuji series with the same signature. For the moment, we can conclude that these must date from ‘before 1831.’ Yet, we may assume that Nishimuraya waited to announce that the prints in the Fuji series would be printed in tones of blue until he was sufficiently confident that the first group of ten prints sold well. At least well enough to take the risk of issuing the remainder of the series in the newly available but still costly non-fugitive blue pigment, publishing prints was after all a completely commercial enterprise. Most likely, I would say, this means that a first group of Fuji prints had been issued some time in 1830 and needed already to be reprinted several times as demand proved to be lasting.

Just to corroborate or contradict these findings, let us have a look at Hokusai’s signatures around this period: He signed a painting of a seller of New Year’s charms (British Museum Collection) ‘Hokusai Iitsu’ in I/1827; he signed the novel Shinpen Suikogaden Part 2a Hokusai Taito in I/1829 and in the same month, his Chūgi Suikoden ehon was signed Katsushika saki no Hokusai Iitsu – and we must remember that Hokusai often used different signatures for different audiences, and these are a painting, a popular novel, and a picture book respectively. In III/1830, he signed a surimono print of two women gathering salt water by the seaside ‘Hokusai aratame Iitsu,’ or ‘Hokusai changing his name to Iitsu.’

I couldn’t find, so far, any other examples of the signature ‘the former Hokusai,’ but we do see the signature ‘Iitsu, the former Hokusai’ from 1831: it is used in two announcements in I/1831, the one concerning the sequel of the Fuji series of prints, the other one for a novel in eight volumes written by Ryūtei Tanehiko (not yet identified), and again in III/1831 in the 1-volume poetry collection Onna ichidai eigashū, as well as later also, in 1832, 1833 and so on. I am real glad we are here now, and I promise to make a clean and clear chronology soon, to appear in the next part of this series of notes that was concerned with the date of the Great Wave to begin with.

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Hokusai’s Great Wave off Kanagawa – Hokusai and Aizurie Part III
🇯🇵「神奈川沖浪裏」製作年考：
北斎と藍擦絵（其の三）

As far as I know, there are only three more examples of aizuri prints by Hokusai that need to be considered, and then we can try and see whether we can reach a conclusion on our original question: What is the date of the so-called Great Wave? This time we will focus on a group of some seventeen or more prints in the narrow upright tanzaku format, measuring 350 x 68 mm. Like the group of koban prints discussed earlier, in Part II, they were published by Moriya Jihei. With two exceptions, they are signed Saki no Hokusai Iitsu hitsu (two are signed Saki no Hokusai ga), and with three exceptions they are all normal full colour prints, nishikie, three being printed in tones of blue only, the aizurie that we are specifically interested in. Moreover, except five, they can all be found in the collection of the Berlin Museum of East Asian Art, being listed in Steffi Schmidt’s 1971 catalogue as nos. 600-610.

Nagata lists thirteen of them on pp. 215f. of his Hokusai nenpu and incorporated ten in his 2005 Hokusai exhibition in the Tokyo National Museum, as follows: 1 – A tenaga and an ashinaga – aizurie (Achenbach Foundation); 2 – Ebisu catching fish from a boat (Berlin 608; TNM exhibition 271); 3 – A pilgrim standing on the back of another one and writing on a pillar, signed Saki no Hokusai (Berlin 609; TNM 269; British Museum; Pushkin); 4 – Woman rope-walking and juggling balls (Berlin 606; TNM 264); 5 – Two men making a large wooden tub (Berlin 607; TNM 270); 6 – Two men working on the covering of a roof with rooftiles, signed Saki no Hokusai (Berlin 610; TNM 263); 7 – Deer and full moon – aizurie (Berlin 601; TNM 272); 8 – Acrobat performance (Berlin 605; TNM 268); 9 – Monk sweeping maple leaves (Berlin 602; TNM 265; British Museum); 10 – Man seated by a tsuitate and chanting from a book (Berlin 604; TNM 267; Hokusai updated, 2019, 376 Nagata Collection); 11 – Bushishi on a scroll (Berlin 603; TNM 266); 12 – Sparrow by chestnut (Berlin); 13 – Woman washing a length of cloth in a stream (British Museum).

Shishi in a waterfall

Not listed in Nagata 1985 are four more, such as 14 – Waterfall – aizurie (Berlin 600); 15 – A shōjō eating rice cakes and not drinking (Hokusai updated, 2019, 376 Nagata Collection); 16 – Farmers doing the sparrow-dance (Hokusai updated, 2019, 377 Nagata Collection); and 17 – Shishi in a waterfall (PC). But totalling seventeen, while they were no doubt printed three from an aiban block, means that there must at least be one more still to surface. But we have at least three aizurie: the tenaga and ashinaga (no. 1), the deer and the full autumn moon (no. 7), and the waterfall (no. 14), all of these signed Saki no Hokusai Iitsu.

Summarizing all the aizurie prints we so far could identify, we are considering ten prints from the Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji series, all signed Saki no Hokusai Iitsu and published by Nishimuraya Yohachi; ten koban prints of various subjects from an untitled group, all signed Saki no Hokusai and published by Moriya Jihei; nine envelopes from a series titled One Hundred Views of the Eastern Capital, Tōto hyakkei, signed Hokusai aratame Iitsu and issued by an unidentified publisher; and three prints in the tanzaku format from an untitled group of so far seventeen identified prints, signed Saki no Hokusai Iitsu, and published by Moriya Jihei.

With three different signatures on four groups of prints, I really hope to find the time one of these days to see whether we can come up with a plausible dating for the Great Wave. (And honestly, I only write all of this to just find answers to questions, just checking once again in view of what I know today, but I don’t have the answer to begin with.)

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Kuniyoshi Helping Us Date Hokusai’s 100 Views of Fuji
🇯🇵北斎『富嶽百景』製作年考：
國芳

In the early 1840s, Kuniyoshi took up the theme of landscape prints again, after some more than five years silence on this front. Alas, for reasons unknown, the project was stopped after only five designs had come out. Was it the poor reaction of the print buying public, or was it beyond the capacity of the publisher Murataya Jirōbei, or was it the poets involved in some of the prints? Anyway, we are left with only five of thirty-six scheduled/promised designs in the series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji Seen from the Eastern Capital (Tōto Fujimi sanjūrokkei).

Kuniyoshi: Mount Fuji with a Clear Sky from the Open Sea at Tsukudajima Island

For Kuniyoshi, the series seems to have been a tribute to Hokusai whom he greatly admired. Not only does the ‘Thirty-six’ in the series title evoke Hokusai’s famous Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku sanjūrokkei) of the early 1830s, also the writing of the name of the mountain with characters literally reading ‘Not two,’  meaning  ’Second to none,’ calls into mind the characters used in the titles of the plates in Hokusai’s Hundred Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku hyakkei) albums.

As for the dating of the Kuniyoshi series, Robinson 1961 has c.1843; Nagoya 1996 has c.1844; Ota 2011 has c.1844; Iwakiri 2013 has c.1843; Menegazzo 2017 has c.1843. I myself had dated the series to ‘early 1840s,’ actually rather thinking of a date around 1842/43. And that was before I realised that the plate of the fisherman pulling up his large net was to be found in volume three of the Hundred Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku hyakkei) album, and not in volumes one or two. The fisherman in Hokusai’s plate titled Mount Fuji Behind the Net (Amiura no Fuji) is almost literally copied by Kuniyoshi in his plate Mount Fuji with a Clear Sky from the Open Sea at Tsukudajima Island (Tsukuda oki kaisei no Fuji) – actually writing characters reading ‘seiten’ and indicating that they should be read ‘kaisei’, as in the Fuji in South Wind and Clear Sky (Gaifū kaisei) plate in Hokusai’s Thirty-six Views.

Hokusai: Mount Fuji Behind the Net, from Fugaku hyakkei vol. 3

The date of publication for the two first volumes of the Hundred Views of Mount Fuji is no problem, these are clearly indicated at the end as 1834 and 1835. But the third volume was issued without any such a date, moreover by a different publisher than the two earlier volumes. It is now commonly accepted that the designs were finished by Hokusai and also the blocks were cut by Egawa Sentarō, or at least under his supervision, as early as 1835 for publication in 1836. This we may conclude from a letter of Hokusai to the publishers Kobayashi Shinbei and two others, asking them to contract Egawa for some future project, as his work on the ’three volumes of the Hundred Views surpassed that of many others’ (see Iijima Kyoshin, Katsushika Hokusaiden, Vol. 1, pp. 54f).

But then the long-established firm of the publisher Nishimuraya Yohachi went bankrupt and Nishimuraya was obliged to sell the blocks of all three volumes, which were then acquired by Eirakuya Tōshirō of Nagoya. Eirakuya then waited until the worst of the Tenpō crisis was over – which was probably also the reason why Nishimuraya went bankrupt – and then he brought out his edition of the three volumes of the Hundred Views.

As there is a reference to Hokusai as ‘the old man of over ninety’ in the preface to volume three, Suzuki 1986 (p. 205) believed that this volume was published around 1849, the year Hokusai died, aged 90. Nagata 1985 (p. 161) records volume three as undated, but positions it in between publications of 1840/II and 1841/Autumn (much earlier, in an article in Ukiyoe Art, no. 47 [1975] Nagata still held the date of publication to be ‘c.1849’). Forrer 1985 (p. 173) was the first to suggest a date around 1842, on the basis of the advertisements that Eirakuya included in his first edition of Hokusai’s Hundred Views of Mount Fuji. But I must say that I never bothered to check who was following me except from Nagata sensei. Anyway, the date of c.1842 would be perfectly in agreement with the various datings of Kuniyoshi’s Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji seen from the Eastern Capital where he acknowledges to have seen all three of the Hokusai Hundred Views albums. 

Posted on by gakyōrōjin 画狂老人

Hokusai’s Great Wave off Kanagawa – Hokusai and Aizurie Part II
🇯🇵「神奈川沖浪裏」製作年考：
北斎と藍擦絵（其の弐）

As for prints in various tones of blue exclusively, so-called aizurie, a series of probably ten prints issued by the publisher Moriya Jihei is probably the best example. It was issued without any series or print titles, and was comprised of figures, landscapes, and subjects from nature. They are small format koban prints, roughly measuring 227 x 168 mm, as correctly identified in Forrer 1974:127 (however, Steffi Schmidt in her 1971 catalogue [nos 593-99] of the Berlin collection identifies the prints as chūban, giving measurements ranging from 221 to 295 mm height x 164 to 168 width, a quite unlikely variation between prints from the same series, but also the Boston Museum of Fine Arts identifies the prints as chūban in its database, as does Yasuda in his 1971 monograph [p 140], as does Nagata in both his 1985 Nenpu [p 194], and in his 2005 Hokusai exhibition catalogue [cat 343-51]).

Their subjects are A man washing potatoes in a tub; Mōsō finding a fresh bamboo shoot in the snow; Boats passing under rocky cliffs with a moon in the sky; A mountainous landscape with a bridge across a waterfall; Two fish: a halfbeak and a bream, and a crayfish; Two fish: a sole and a kasago, and two ark shell (akagai); Three sparrows and morning glory; A sparrow trying to catch a fly; Plovers flying over waves. That is nine in all, suggesting that there is at least one more design missing, as such small format prints would at least be printed two from an aiban format block. Just found the missing one: A Finch on a hibiscus (MFA 21.10230).*

Indeed, in the 2005 Tokyo National Museum catalogue, the print of three sparrows by a morning glory (350) has been cut so carelessly that it still shows the line where the two prints should have been separated, and even part of the kiwame censorship seal and of the publisher’s mark of Moriya of the other print – so we can know that it was printed together with the design of plovers and waves. As I long ago also possessed myself an uncut sheet from the series, I know that also the designs of two fish and a crayfish and of the man washing potatoes were printed together from the same block.

All of the prints in this series have the signature Saki no Hokusai hitsu (前北斎筆), or “Brush of the Former Hokusai,” combined with various seals. Of these seals, just one is of special interest, reading “Old Man of 72” (Nanajūni-ō), so we can date this series to the year 1831.

A second series of aizurie prints, or rather “printed matter,” is titled A Hundred Views in the Eastern Capital (Tōto hyakkei). As said, they are not exactly prints, but rather printed matter in the format of envelopes to be used for sending notes and brief letters in a nice wrapper, rather than, as was the common practice, just writing the name of the addressee somewhere so the postman could see it. They measure 191 x 51 mm and were published by an unidentified publisher, otherwise known for fans designed by Katsukawa Shunei, Utagawa Kuniyasu, and by Hiroshige.

Cherry Blossoms at Ueno
Yanaka, in between Ueno and Hongo Heights, Private collection, The Netherlands
Nihonbashi from the Art Institute of Chicago Collection
Nihonbashi
Art Institute of Chicago Collection

At present, we know of nine surviving examples of these envelopes, picturing Nihonbashi, Sumidagawa, Ōhashi, Mimeguri, Ōji, Fukagawa, Shibaura, Yanaka, and Blossoms at Ueno, Ueno no hana. They are signed Hokusai aratame Iitsu ga. Narazaki in his 1944 Hokusai ron (p 374) was probably the first to record the Ōji and Sumida River subjects of this group which he saw in the Miyake Hikojirō collection. Later, Nagata in his 1985 Nenpu would identify the above mentioned nine subjects, all but the Ōji subject in the collection of the National Diet Library. The Nihonbashi envelope is also preserved in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Shibaura envelope is also preserved in the collection of the Library of Congress, Washington, and the Ueno and Yanaka envelopes are also held in Dutch private collections. Surprisingly, these somewhat luxury ephemera – and that is probably why so few have survived – are the earliest examples of Hokusai working in the aizurie technique, signing his works with the signature Hokusai aratame Iitsu ga. Indeed, it is remarkable that a publisher of such ephemera would make use of the new indigo pigment earlier than his colleagues catering to buyers of prints … to be continued.

*I had wanted to include a picture of one of these prints, but searching the online database of the Ostasiatisches Museum Berlin – that owns seven of these prints, the search for ‘Hokusai’ only yields three Hiroshige prints, two different Hokusai prints, and one Hokkei surimono — or am I doing something stupid?