The is a collection of sketches of various subjects by the

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the n ...

ese artist

Hokusai , known simply as Hokusai, was a Japanese ukiyo-e artist of the Edo period, active as a painter and printmaker. He is best known for the woodblock print series '' Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji'', which includes the iconic print ''The Great W ...

. Subjects of the sketches include landscapes, flora and fauna, everyday life and the supernatural. The word ''manga'' in the title does not refer to the contemporary story-telling ''

manga Manga ( Japanese: 漫画 ) are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long prehistory in earlier Japanese art. The term ''manga'' is ...

'', as the sketches in the work are not connected to each other. Block-printed in three colours (black, gray and pale flesh), the Manga comprise thousands of images in fifteen volumes, the first published in 1814, when the artist was 55. The final three volumes were published posthumously, two of them assembled by their publisher from previously unpublished material. The final volume was made up of previously published works, some not even by Hokusai, and is not considered authentic by art historians.

Publication history

The preface to the first volume of the work, written by , a minor artist of

Nagoya is the largest city in the Chūbu region, the fourth-most populous city and third most populous urban area in Japan, with a population of 2.3million in 2020. Located on the Pacific coast in central Honshu, it is the capital and the most po ...

, suggests that the publication of the work may be aided by Hokusai's pupils. Part of the preface reads: The final volume is considered spurious by some art historians. The initial publication is usually credited to

Eirakuya Toshiro Eirakuya Co. Ltd. (株式会社永楽屋かぶしきがいしゃえいらくや ''kabushiki-gaisha Eirakuya'') is a Japanese manufacturer and vendor of ''tenugui'' (hand towels) located in the Nakagyō-ku ward of Kyoto, Japan. It was founded ...

(永楽屋東四郎) of Nagoya whose publishing house was renamed to Eito Shoten in 1914.

Sources of the Manga

The traditional view holds that, after the outburst of production, Hokusai carefully selected and redrew the sketches, arranging them into the patterns we see today. However, Michener (1958:30-34) argues that the pattern of the images on a particular plate were arranged by the wood carvers and publishers, not by the artist himself.

Legacy

The first volume of 'Manga' (Defined by Hokusai as 'Brush gone wild'), was an art instruction book published to aid his troubled finances. Shortly after he removed the text and republished it. The Manga evidence a dedication to artistic

realism Realism, Realistic, or Realists may refer to: In the arts *Realism (arts), the general attempt to depict subjects truthfully in different forms of the arts Arts movements related to realism include: * Classical Realism *Literary realism, a mov ...

in portrayal of people and the natural world. The work was an immediate success, and the subsequent volumes soon followed. The work became known to the West since

Philipp Franz von Siebold Philipp Franz Balthasar von Siebold (17 February 1796 – 18 October 1866) was a German physician, botanist and traveler. He achieved prominence by his studies of Japanese flora and fauna and the introduction of Western medicine in Japan. He w ...

's lithographed paraphrases of some of the sketches appeared in his ''Nippon: Archiv Zur Beschreibung von Japon'' in 1831. The work began to circulate in the West soon after Matthew C. Perry's entry into Japan in 1854.Hillier, p. 107 and 110

Notes

References

*Bouquillard, Jocelyn and Marquet, Christopher (2007). Nash, Liz trans. ''Hokusai: First Manga Master''. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc. . *Hillier, Jack R. (1980). ''The Art of Hokusai in Book Illustration''. London: Sotheby Parke Bernet; Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press. * Michener, James A. (1958). ''Hokusai Sketchbooks: Selections from the Manga''. Rutland, Vermont & Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle Company. *'The Floating World of Hokusai': BBC Radio 4, broadcast 10:30am (UTC) 30 Aug 2012.

External links

All volumes
at The Pulverer Collection (in English)
All volumes
at the Bibliothèque de l'Institut National d'Histoire de l'Art, Paris, France

{{Hokusai Works by Hokusai Manga