Hokusai

Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849) was one of the greatest of the Japanese printmakers. painters and book illustrators. This richly illustrated monograph provides a comprehensive overview of the master's life and works, and also analyses his potent influence on Western artists. The core of the book is a series of six chapters, each providing a succinct account of a phase in Hokusai's life followed by a sequence of the finest and most representative works of that period. In addition, seven essays by distinguished Western and Japanese scholars present new research on a range of crucial areas of interest in Hokusai's studies. Finally, a full commentary on each illustration provides detailed technical information and also a revealing analysis of style, colour, composition and motif. With some 700 illustrations, this magnificent scholarly survey is the first publication in English to make such a rich selection of Hokusai's prints, paintings and drawings available to a wide public, revealing his mastery of line and colour to full advantage, and demonstrating the extraordinary range and quality of his achievement. This will become an indispensable book for all scholars and lovers of Japanese art. Book jacket.

Gian Carlo Calza is Professor of East Asian Art, Ca' Foscari University, Venice, and Director of the International Hokusai Research Centre in Milan. A distinguished authority on Hokusai and Japanese art, he has published many books, exhibition catalogues and articles on Hokusai Roger S. Keyes is Visiting Professor in the History of Art at Brown University, and Director of the Center for the Study of Japanese Prints Matthi Forrer is Curator of the Japanese Department at the National Museum of Ethnology, University of Leiden John M. Rosenfield is Emeritus Professor of East Asian Art, Harvard University, and Curator of Asian Art at the Harvard University Art Museums Richard Lane is an Independent scholar, Kyoto Asano Shugo is Curator of the Municipal Museum of Art, Chiba Tsuji Nobuo is Rector of Tama University of Fine Arts. Tokyo, and Emeritus Professor of East Asian Art at the University of Tokyo Kobayashi Tadashi is Director of the Municipal Museum of Art, Chiba, and Professor of East Asian Art History at Gakushuin University, Tokyo