Collection: Hokusai Katsushika

(Edo 1760 - Edo 1849)

Katsushika Hokusai (a name he took after changing it several times) is a Japanese painter and printmaker, best known for his works in the Ukiyo-e style. The “old man crazy about painting”, as he calls himself, is undoubtedly the most representative artist of his time. Eccentric and meticulous, always in search of perfection and with the desire to constantly improve, he owes his fame mainly to his prints, although he is also active in the field of painting and graphics. In a career spanning more than sixty years, he explored various forms of art, trying his hand at producing woodcuts with theatrical subjects, privately circulated greeting prints and, in the 1830s, landscape series.
In the last years of his life Hokusai produced what are probably his most important works. In fact, from this period are the series Views of Famous Bridges , Famous Waterfalls in Various Provinces , the incomplete One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji and above all Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji , of which The Great Wave off Kanagawa is the most important and well-known work.
Among the works in the gallery, the Cranes under Fuji stand out, a superb work perfectly preserved in shades of green and blue, and The Great Cedar , also characterised by splendid colours, in which Hokusai inserts two elements drawn from Western tradition: the sense of perspective given by the gigantic pine tree in the foreground and by Fuji in the distance and the configuration of the clouds. There are also some of the most beautiful plates of the One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji and the complete works of his very famous Manga .

"Since the age of 6 I have felt the desire to paint whatever I see around me; after the age of 50 I had already done a good number of works but I was not at all satisfied with my work. Only now, at the age of 75, have I partially understood the true form and character of birds, fish and plants. At the age of 80 I will certainly have made further progress: so that, when I am 90, I will be able to penetrate the true essence of things. At the age of 100 I will reach a high level of perfection, and at the age of 110, everything I create, every dot and line I draw, will be life itself. I invite all who know me then to ascertain the truth of these words of mine. Written at the age of 75 by someone once known as Hokusai and now called "an old fool for painting."
Text taken from Hokusai's spiritual testament, engraved in the colophon of One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji.