Is it not possible that this trickery of the master may have unconsciously supplied the motive for Hiroshige’s famous print of a Yedo suburb, chosen by Professor Fenollosa, in his beautiful work on Ukiyo-ye,—where he so poetically says, “the orange fire of maples deepens the blue of marshy pools”?
Space does not permit any detailed description of the compositions of Hokusai, and there is no complete catalogue of his works, the one nearest to accuracy being M. Edmond de Goncourt’s Catalogue raisonné. His fecundity was marvellous. He illustrated books of all kinds, poetry, comic albums, accounts of travels,—in fact his works are an encyclopedia of Japanese life. His paintings are scattered, and countless numbers lost, many being merely ephemeral drawings, thrown off for the passing pleasure of the populace. The original designs for the prints were transferred to the blocks, and lost, though the master rigidly superintended the reproduction of his works, and his wood-cutters were trained to follow the graceful sweeping curves with perfect accuracy, many of his compositions being ruled across for exact reduction.
A River Scene. By Hok’kei, the faithful pupil of Hokusai, who strove to follow in the footsteps of the Master.
Ukiyo-ye art is bound up with print development, and the climax of xylography had been reached in the time of Hokusai. Japanese book illustration, and single-sheet printing, revolutionized the world’s art. The great connoisseurs of colour tell us that nowhere else is there anything like it,—so rich and so full, that a print comes to have every quality of a complete painting.
Hokusai had served a four years’ apprenticeship to the school of engraving, and his practiced eye was ever ready to detect any inaccuracy in his workmen. “I warn the engraver,” he said, “not to add an eyeball underneath when I do not draw one. As to the nose, these two are mine,”—here he draws a nose in front and in profile,—“I will not have the nose of Utagawa.” The greatest difference exists in the beauty and colouring of the impressions, and the amateur, in his search for Ukiyo-ye gems, should not trust his unaided judgment.
M. Louis Gonse said of the surimono, “To me they are the most seductive morsels of Japanese art.” They are small, oblong prints, composed as programmes for festive occasions with a text of verse enriched by exquisite illustration. The surimono of Hokusai showed the influence of Tosa, the decoration being very elaborate, and delicate as a Persian miniature. In places, the surface of the print is goffered for ornament in relief, and the colouring is enforced by inlaying in gold, silver, bronze and tin.
Some of the best examples of Hokusai’s art are the “Waterfalls,” the “Bridges,” “Thirty-six Views of Fuji,” the “Gwafu,” the “Hundred Views of Fuji” (of which the finest edition was brought out in London with a commentary by Mr. F. V. Dickins), and the fifteen volumes of the “Mang-wa,”—a term hardly translatable, but signifying fugitive sketches, or drawing as it comes, spontaneously. The preface best gives us the intention of the master.
“Under the roof of Boksenn, in Nagoya, he dreamed and drew some three hundred compositions. The things of Heaven and of Buddha, the life of men and women, even birds and beasts, plants and trees, he has included them all, and under his brush every phase and form of existence has arisen. The master has tried to give life to everything he has painted, and the joy and happiness so faithfully expressed in his work are a plain proof of his victory.”
Hokusai has been called the king of the artisans, and it was for them especially that he composed the drawings of Mang-wa. His influence is expressed in all their works: in the structure of the roofs of temples, in houses and their interiors; upon the things of every-day life, as upon flowers and landscapes, upon lacquer, inros and netsukis, bronzes and ivory.