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by Henry D. Smith,Henry D. II Smith,Hokusai Katsushika

ISBN: 080761453X
Author: Henry D. Smith,Henry D. II Smith,Hokusai Katsushika
Language: English
Publisher: George Braziller (October 1, 1999)
Pages: 224
Category: History & Criticism
Subcategory: Art
Rating: 4.9
Votes: 197
Size Fb2: 1635 kb
Size ePub: 1436 kb
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Henry D. Smith Henry D. II Smith Hokusai Katsushika History and Criticism English

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Henry D. Smith II is Professor of Japanese history at Columbia University, New York, and . The description by the seller was well detailed and accurate.

Henry D. Smith II is Professor of Japanese history at Columbia University, New York, and the author of the critically renowned Hiroshige: One Hundred Famous Views of Edo (Braziller, 1986). It was delivered as noted and in great shape. This book is a value to anyone who enjoys Japan and it's culture. 2 people found this helpful.

As Henry Smith expounds: "Thus from an early time, Mt. Fuji was seen as the source of the secret of immortality, a. .Smith, Henry D. II (1988). Hokusai: One Hundred Views of Mt. Fuji. New York: George Braziller, In. Publishers. Fuji was seen as the source of the secret of immortality, a tradition that was at the heart of Hokusai's own obsession with the mountain. The largest of Hokusai's works is the 15-volume collection Hokusai Manga (北斎漫画), published in 1814.

Reproduced from the illustrated book Fugaku Hyakkei by Hokusai in the Spencer Collection, Sorimachi 579, New York Public Library Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundation"-T.

by. Katsushika, Hokusai, 1760-1849; Smith, Henry . II (Henry DeWitt), 1940-. Reproduced from the illustrated book Fugaku Hyakkei by Hokusai in the Spencer Collection, Sorimachi 579, New York Public Library Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundation"-T. Includes bibliography (p. 223-224).

Hokusai's "100 Views of Mt Fuji" first appeared in three separate volumes: this book reprints .

Hokusai's "100 Views of Mt Fuji" first appeared in three separate volumes: this book reprints them in one handy paperback. There are several extremely nice touches about this version. Here's Henry Smith's appealing theory:"I think that that the two beyond one hundred were related to his underlying preoccupation with long life: they were like the 'one to grow on' candle that we stick in a birthday cake, a wish that he actually live on past his cherished goal of one hundred.

Discusses the importance of Mt. Fuji in Japanese society, shows prints featuring the mountain, and . Fuji in Japanese society, shows prints featuring the mountain, and explains the background of each scene depicted. In addition to a robust historical and.

One hundred Views of Mt. 100 views of Mt. Fuji

One hundred Views of Mt. One hundred Views of Mt. One hundred views of Mount Fuji.

Hokusai Katsushika (Introduction), Henry D. Smith I. Hokusai created the "Thirty-Six Views" both as a response to a domestic travel boom and as part of a personal obsession with Mount Fuji.

Hokusai created the "Thirty-Six Views" both as a response to a domestic travel boom and as part of a personal obsession with Mount Fuji. It was this series, specifically The Great Wave print and Fuji in Clear Weather, that secured Hokusai’s fame both in Japan and overseas.

Reproduced from the nineteenth-century illustrated book Fugaku Hyakkei by Hokusai Katsushika showing M.

Reproduced from the nineteenth-century illustrated book Fugaku Hyakkei by Hokusai Katsushika showing Mt. Fuji through the artist's. eye, now in the Spencer Collection of The New York Public Library. 224 pages, 83 duotone illustrations. Published by George Braziller, In. 1988.

Fuji (9780807614532) by Hokusai Katsushika; Henry D. Smith and a great . Items related to Hokusai: One Hundred Views of Mt. Fuji

Items related to Hokusai: One Hundred Views of Mt. Hokusai Katsushika; Henry D. Smith Hokusai: One Hundred Views of Mt. ISBN 13: 9780807614532. Smith. Henry D.

Katsushika, Hokusai, 1760-1849. Reproduced from the illustrated book Fugaku Hyakkei by Hokusai in the Spencer Collection, Sorimachi 579, New York Public Library Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundation. (Henry DeWitt), II, 1940-.

One Hundred Views of Mt. Fuji by the renowned Japanese artist Hokusai is a work of unending visual delight. Considered Hokusai's masterpiece, this series of images captures the simple, elegant shape of Mount Fuji from every angle and in every context. With no more than delicate, engraved outlines and flat washes of gray, Hokusai displays his consummate virtuosity as a draftsman, printmaker, and compositional innovator. Seen behind hanging strips of cloth outside a dyer's shop, or through the close stems of swaying bamboo, Mt. Fuji takes on a variety of guises--at times majestic, ominous, and even occasionally comic--to reflect its multiform meaning within Japanese culture.

Comments:

Felolune

All of these prints are in black and white, and were intended to be. You read the book from back to front, just as it would have been printed in Hokusai's day. They commentaries really help you appreciate the meaning of these beautiful prints. If you are interested in Hokusai and in Japanese prints, you will enjoy this book.

Modigas

This is Hokusai at his best. His quality of line is exceptional and the images are a constant delight. The fertility of the artist's imagination is nothing short of astonishing. Hokusai gives us the mythological origins of Fuji, simple views of Fuji, pilgrims climbing and descending Fuji, Fuji's reflection, Fuji seen through rain and through mist, Fuji framed by trees, windows and bridges, Fuji from near and Fuji from afar. In one striking interior view, we see some surprised people looking at a miraculous vision of an inverted Fuji that floats on a screen before them. The explanation? A knothole in the house's wooden wall has transformed the building into a kind of giant camera obscura, and the morning sun is projecting an image of the mountain onto the screen. So... Fuji outdoors and Fuji indoors.
One has to make a firm distinction between the original project and this edition. Hokusai's "100 Views of Mt Fuji" first appeared in three separate volumes: this book reprints them in one handy paperback. There are several extremely nice touches about this version. For a start, all the prints are reproduced to scale, and organized in the Japanese manner (i.e. the first print appears at the back of the book, and the last at the front). Better still, the prefaces, colophons, and title pages are all included, too. In total, you actually get 102 views of the mountain, and many of these consist of two separate prints on facing pages. This book is certainly great value for money because it doesn't stop here. Placed at the back of the volume--so as not to interfere with the flow of the prints--are translations of the Japanese texts and a commentary for each view of the mountain. All of these are extremely illuminating, and manage to outline just enough about Japanese history and culture for the images to make perfect sense. There's also an excellent introduction, which goes into more detail about the rich cultural and religious significance of Fuji, and about the nature of Hokusai's project. Why, for example, were there 102 views, not 100? Here's Henry Smith's appealing theory:
"I think that that the two beyond one hundred were related to his underlying preoccupation with long life: they were like the 'one to grow on' candle that we stick in a birthday cake, a wish that he actually live on past his cherished goal of one hundred."
I have just two major gripes to make about this otherwise excellent version of Hokusai's "One Hundred Views..." The first is that the edges of each facsimiled page seem to have been cropped in such a way that some of the original material (generally Japanese writing) has been lost. More seriously, the original prints were made with black ink and a range of grays, but, here, many of these grays appear to be rather washed out. Sometimes this doesn't much matter, but sometimes it seriously effects the legibility of a print. An example: one of the most famous views of the mountain consists of a spider's web with a leaf caught in it. "Where's Fuji?" we wonder. (Hokusai is constantly making us mutter these words to ourselves.) In a good print, we eventually notice a couple of light gray zones at the top of the image, which represent the sky surrounding the top of Fuji. We're seeing the mountain through the web. But, in this book, these grays have almost entirely disappeared and, as a consequence, so has Fuji.

Nevertheless, you should absolutely buy this book. Rarely has so much inventiveness, wit and visual poetry been crammed into such a small space.

Gom

well written and a wonderful text.

Zan

A stunningly beautiful book in excellent condition, very many thanks

Foxanayn

My purchase of "Hokusai: One Hundred Views of Mt Fuji" deserves a 5 star rating as the book and delivery was everything I expected. The description by the seller was well detailed and accurate. It was delivered as noted and in great shape. This book is a value to anyone who enjoys Japan and it's culture. I'd order from this bookseller anytime!

Ucantia

I teach haiku in 9th grade English. The 6th grade teacher also teaches haiku, and she was excited to see the book after I had received it. It arrived in excellent condition.

Kison

Beautiful book! Arrived promptly thank you!

Hokusai produced two great Fuji print series in the 1930s: the 36 Views of Mt. Fuji, and the 100 Views of Mt. Fuji. His main claim to fame is the 36 Views, which includes the world-renowned “Under the Wave off Kanagawa” (aka “The Great Wave”). None of the 100 Views ever achieved comparable fame but that hasn’t deterred critics from proclaiming this series Hokusai’s lifetime masterpiece.

Unusual for ukiyo-e, these prints were published in book form rather than as separate and apart from each other. The first of three volumes quickly followed Hokusai’s blockbuster 36 Views, and was published in 1834. The final volume appeared sometime in the late 1840s.

The first thing you notice flipping through these sketches is that unlike the 36 Views, they aren’t in color. Hokusai was limited here to sumi (black) ink, gray (achieved by diluting sumi), and white. But within those limitations he produced one of the great classics of his age.

Why the absence of color? The complete 102 designs (two “extras” thrown in) if printed in color would have been ruinous for Hokusai’s publisher. Japan in the mid-1830s was wracked by famine, with dire economic consequences. It would be another 25 years before the market accepted a 100-print color series, and that was Hiroshige’s 100 Famous Views of Edo, published in 1859 (and reviewed under “Hiroshige” in these book reviews).

The 36 Views outdoes its successor series for accuracy portraying actual scenery in Fuji’s vicinity. But literal accuracy wasn’t a major concern for Hokusai - just as it was not for the Impressionists who admired him. So what we get instead is a display of his enormous imaginative range.

Who would have thought it’s possible to portray a mountain in so many ways without repeating yourself or dropping artistic or creative standards? Yet Hokusai maintains a very high level of integrity throughout.

Sometimes Mt. Fuji is the clear focus of attention, sometimes it’s people going about their business, or wonderful animals doing their thing. Still other times the mountain is a distant backdrop subsumed in foreground landscape.

Pick a half dozen prints at random to see why the 100 Views easily establishes Hokusai’s genius for draftsmanship. Since we’re not distracted by color, this element takes on fundamental importance. It’s also the reason many who write about Hokusai consider this series his greatest achievement.

Smith’s book includes all three volumes which comprise the series. In his Introduction he advises that the 100 Views “achieves true masterpiece status only in the original edition, which is reproduced here” (from a copy housed at the New York Public Library).
Apparently later editions suffered from over-production, resulting in worn blocks. Collectors of older best selling prints frequently encounter this problem. Publishers often weren’t above squeezing every mon possible (every cent) from an original block - to the point where the designer’s genius was reduced to the commonplace.

So I recommend this book without hesitation. And don’t skip the Introduction, which is well worth reading in its entirety for anyone interested in a deeper understanding of the 100 Views.