(Review) Hokusai's Great Wave: biography of a global icon

Journal of Asian Studies, 2018

Presentation of the 2nd Mutual Images Workshop held at Université François Rabelais de Tours (France) in 2014. Includes the abstracts of the papers presented

… and Records of …, 2009

The great wave off Kanagawa by Katsushika Hokusai is probably the most famous image in Japanese art. It depicts three boats in heavy seas on the point of encountering the eponymous wave, while Mount Fuji is glimpsed in the distance. The print is today often reproduced as the artistic depiction of a tsunami. Did Hokusai really have a tsunami in mind when he composed this work? We examine that hypothesis together with the alternatives, by discussing the image itself and the circumstances surrounding its composition, and by evaluating the wave in terms of the fluid dynamics of breaking waves and in particular of the species termed plunging breakers, of which The great wave is a member, and conclude that it is more probable that Hokusai intended to depict an exceptionally large storm wave. There is a great deal of scientific interest at present in such abnormally high waves, which are often termed freak or rogue waves.

Mutual Images, 2021

Table of Contents Source: Mutual Images [Online], Issue 9, Autumn, 2020. ISSN: 2496-1868. Doi: https://doi.org/10.32926/9 Freely available at our Open Access Journal : http://www.mutualimages-journal.org

University of Tokyo Press eBooks, 2018

Reviewed by Brenda G. Jordan N obuo Tsuji's History of Art in Japan was originally published by the University of Tokyo Press in 2005 and is now available in English translation. The book covers Japan's art history from the ancient Jōmon Era all the way to the rise of manga and anime in the twentieth century. Included is a list of the main historical eras in both Romanization and Japanese; a map of archaeological sites; a timeline for Japan, Korea, and China; long lists of scholarly English-languages sources on Japanese art; and an extensive index that usefully includes the Japanese rendering of words. The author is Professor Emeritus at the University of Tokyo and Tama Art University. Tsuji is considered one of the preeminent Japanese art historians of his generation, a trailblazer in the research on Japanese eccentrics and the arts of playfulness in Japan. His introduction to this book takes a refreshingly different approach from the usual beaux arts (fine arts) focus of old by including a broad selection of Japanese arts: painting, sculpture, ceramics, lacquer, textiles, metalworking, architecture, gardens, calligraphy, photography, printmaking, and design. Rather than prioritizing one kind of art over another, Tsuji develops three concepts: "wonderous adornment (kazari), playfulness (asobi), and animism. " This kind of approach enables us to view the history of art in Japan more broadly and in tune with the current field of art history, as the idea of bijutsu (fine arts, beaux arts) didn't exist in Japan until the latter part of the nineteenth century. The numerous scholars who assisted the translator with this edition worked hard to provide context; Tsuji, like so many Japanese scholars, assumed a great deal of knowledge on the part of his readers. Even with that, there are likely to be sections that are harder for someone unfamiliar with Japan to fully understand, particularly the numerous references to sites and objects that are not illustrated. The book is probably most useful to graduate students and scholars of East Asian art history, especially Japanese art history, and particularly as a reference book. Some chapters, such as the introduction and chapter 1 on "Jōmon: The Force of Primal Imagination, " can be used for readings in a college classroom as context for the instructor's presentations. Other chapters, such as chapter 3, "Asuka and Hakuhō: The Sphere of East Asian Buddhist Arts, " require a great deal of previous background in Buddhist art, particularly that of China, in order to understand the text. An instructor might use selected readings from Tsuji's book to complement other texts such as Asian Art (Dorinda Neave, Lara Blanchard, and Marika Sardar, 2013) rather than attempt to use it as a main text. Even as an upper-level undergraduate or graduate-level text, the instructor would need to provide historical background and contextualization in order for students to fully understand the material. The book is extremely useful for providing a great deal of information and current research in a comprehensive English-language text.

Hokusai Manga (HM) is the biggest and the best known work of Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849) which consists of ca. 900 pp. published in 15 volumes from 1814 to 1875. This publication discusses the phenomenon of HM and its place in the context of Japanese picture books. Was it a drawing manual or comic cartoons or perhaps a pictorial encyclopedia? What are the historical meanings and etymology of the word manga? The special attention is devoted to the principles of compilation of HM and to the ways of organization of the compositional unity of its volumes. This research offers a major revision of the textual nature of this famous, yet insufficiently studied, masterpiece. Contrary to the common belief that HM is a chaotic jumble of random disjointed pictures, every volume is actually composed as a sophisticated whole with the help of elaborate schemata deeply imbedded in the traditional Japanese ways of textual organization. JEL Classification: Z Keywords: Hokusai, manga, Japanese art, illustrated books, woodblock prints

Mutual Images, 2020

Table of Contents Source: Mutual Images [Online], Issue 8, Spring, 2020. ISSN: 2496-1868. Doi: https://doi.org/10.32926/8 Freely available at our Open Access Journal : http://www.mutualimages-journal.org

Writing for a Real World, 2023

In the summer of 1912, Japanese artist Yamamoto Kanae (1882-1946) traveled from Tokyo to Paris with aspirations of becoming a great Western-style painter. However, the academic style that he had devoted his career to had been outmoded in favor of Fauvism, Cubism, and other developments in Western Modernism. Confronted with art styles that he did not recognize - or particularly care for - Yamamoto was forced to reevaluate his artistic motivations and goals. Like many artists during this period of globalization, he faced the challenge of distinguishing modernization from Westernization and articulating a modern artistic identity that was distinctly Japanese. Examining the development of his printmaking technique and choice of subject matter arising from his pivotal experiences in Paris, Brittany, and Moscow, this paper argues that Yamamoto’s artistic evolution encapsulates the broader effort of Japanese society to assert their national identity in the midst of the increasingly global Modernist movement.