Katsushika Hokusai, Japanese (1760–1849). “Under the Wave off Kanagawa (Kanagawa-oki nami-ura),” also known as the “Great Wave,” from the series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku sanjūrokkei), about 1830–1831, Tenpō Era (1830–1844). Woodblock print (nishiki-e), ink and color on paper, 9 15/16 × 14 13/16 inches. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, William Sturgis Bigelow Collection. Photograph © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
September 21, 2024 – January 5, 2025
This fall, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art will celebrate Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849) in the featured exhibition Hokusai: Waves of Inspiration from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and its companion installation in the Japanese art gallery. Best known to us for his Under the Wave off Kanagawa (familiarly called the Great Wave; 1830–1831), Hokusai was a versatile and prolific artist. With his limitless creativity and extraordinary talent, he gained fame during his lifetime, and his clients and fans included all ends of society in Japan. The artist’s distinctive style manifested in his paintings, prints, and printed books have captivated art enthusiasts globally for over a century and have continued to inspire countless artists, who followed and referenced his visual world.
Hokusai: Waves of Inspiration looks at Hokusai’s vast array of work from the perspectives of his teachers, students, rivals, and posthumous admirers. The exhibition traces his wide-ranging subject matter — from action-packed portraits to serene images responding to poems, to prints capturing haunting ghosts and the wonders of nature. In the first half of the exhibition, we immerse ourselves in the visual culture at the end of Japan’s Edo period (1615–1868) as we look at Hokusai’s works along with those by his teachers, students, and peers. He was eager to learn from other people’s works, including European works of art, while he also taught about 180 students. Drawings and paintings by his students, including his daughter Katsushika Ōi (Japanese, active about 1818–1854), demonstrate how Hokusai’s style prevailed among them while displaying their distinct sensibilities. The second half of the exhibition takes us through a journey across time and geography to survey the intriguing and surprising transcultural connections between works by Hokusai and his peers and those created by artists from Japan and beyond after late-nineteenth century.
Hokusai’s first successful work was Hokusai manga (Hokusai Sketchbooks), a fifteen-volume series of printed books introducing different ways of drawing diverse subjects from figures to animals and landscapes. Although the term manga prompts us to think of graphic novels, they did not follow a narrative, unlike the modern manga. Each volume demonstrated Hokusai’s keen eye towards his subjects as Ōta Nanpo (Japanese, 1749–1823) stated in the preface in Volume 3: “Things he sees with his eyes or pictures in his mind, there is nothing Hokusai cannot draw [or paint].”
In the 1830s, Hokusai designed another big hit series — Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji. Hokusai gave each print in the series an individual composition, highlighting Mount Fuji at a different time, season, and weather, from various angles. Some feature the mountain’s majestic presence, while others focus on everyday human activities with Mount Fuji in the distant background. The series left a significant impact across the global art world through a network of artists and art enthusiasts.
Of the Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji series, the image that appealed the most to Japanese art enthusiasts in late-19th-century France was the Great Wave. The swooping wave in a circular motion, the striking color palette, and the juxtaposition of the transient flow of life against a steadfast landscape have captivated viewers for nearly 200 years. Prints have circulated around the globe, inspiring countless artists retrospectively, including Christiane Baumgartner (German, born 1967), who captured the overwhelming power of ocean in The Wave (2017). Reimagining the print three-dimensionally, Junpei Mitsui (Japanese, born 1987) recreated the composition with LEGO® bricks.
The Kansas City metro area is home to many works by Hokusai and his students and peers. Along with the featured exhibition, the Nelson-Atkins is bringing together three prominent collections in Hokusai: Masterpieces from the Spencer Museum of Art, Richardson-North Collection, and The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Ar.. Presented in the Japanese art gallery, the free exhibition explores a culture of poetry, to which Hokusai belonged, and introduces landscape images featuring distinguished sites. With the two exhibitions featuring Hokusai at two locations in the museum, the Nelson-Atkins will present the largest number of works by Hokusai in its history. And a series of programs associated with Hokusai: Waves of Inspiration from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston will be offered from October to December.
Organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Generous support in Kansas City provided by: Paul DeBruce and Linda Woodsmall-DeBruce; Sara and Bill Morgan; Neil Karbank and Gretchen Calhoun; the Richard J. Stern Foundation for the Arts—Commerce Bank, Trustee; Susan Chambers; J. Scott Francis and Susan Gordon, Francis Family Foundation; and JE Dunn Construction.
–Yayoi Shinoda, Assistant Curator, Japanese Art
