Hakusai is the Japanese artist who is most famous for his set 36 views of Mt. Fuji (+9, I think. His series was so successful he added more.) The 36 Views of Mt. Fuji is best known for by the print named The Great Wave. It fairly epitomizes the whole series. This whole time you thought the picture is about the wave, and it is, while the subject of the series is Mt. Fuji. Hakusai went by several names, changing them for each art phase of his life. Not all the pop-ups are derived from the series, not all from that phase.
Oddly, there isn't a YouTube video for this book.
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Hokusai and Prussian Blue
I listened to a CD lecture series on Asian poetry. I don't remember so much as a lick of it.
One of the things I liked about Lapham's Quarterly is they published excerpts from Asian literatue. It's sorta different. Some Japanese thing from around 1900 was particularly interesting. It was a monologue of what's going on inside the mind of a cat.
I wish I knew more about Japanese culture. An idle lifetime's worth of afterschool youth spent watching Japanese TV shows like "Ultraman" and "Prince Planet" and "Tobor the 8th Man;" trying to understand the subtext of "Midnight Diner;" indulging myself in the pretension that I know -- to a scientific certainty -- what Bill Murray said to Scarlett Johansson at the end of "Lost in Translation" is probably less than what it would take to qualify me as an expert.
I can eat with chopsticks, though, and maybe that's something.
One of my favorites: Hokusai says by Roger Keyes
Hokusai says
Hokusai says look carefully.
He says pay attention, notice.
He says keep looking, stay curious.
He says there is no end to seeing
He says look forward to getting old.
He says keep changing,
you just get more who you really are.
He says get stuck, accept it, repeat
yourself as long as it is interesting.
He says keep doing what you love.
He says keep praying.
He says every one of us is a child,
every one of us is ancient
every one of us has a body.
He says every one of us is frightened.
He says every one of us has to find
a way to live with fear.
He says everything is alive --
shells, buildings, people, fish,
mountains, trees, wood is alive.
Water is alive.
Everything has its own life.
Everything lives inside us.
He says live with the world inside you.
He says it doesn't matter ifyou draw,
or write books. It doesn't matter
ifyou saw wood, or catch fish.
It doesn't matter if you sit at home
and stare at the ants on your veranda
or the shadows of the trees
and grasses in your garden.
It matters that you care.
It matters that you feel.
It matters that you notice.
It matters that life lives through you.
Contentment is life living through you.
Joy is life living through you.
Satisfaction and strength
is life living through you.
He says don't be afraid.
Don't be afraid.
Love, feel, let life take you by the hand.
Let life live through you.
- Roger Keyes
I've always liked Hokusai. Much more accessible to a western sensibility than most Japanese artists. Why? Because he is more muscular.
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