16.+Katsushika+Hokusai+(1760-1849)

[[image:317px-Hokusai_portrait.jpg height="419" align="right" caption="Hokusai, a portrait"]]
When he was fifteen, he started to study the type of art that he his most famous for, or ukiyo-e. These wood block prints gained the attention of the master Shunso who then apprenticed Hokusai. After learning the techniques of the ukiyo-e artist, and still studying under him at the time, Hokusai made prints for many types of novels under the pen name of Shunro. Soon after, he lost his master and wife, causing him to abandon the name Shunro and started to pursue painting techniques.
 * Katsushika Hokusai** was born in Edo, or what is now called Tokyo, to a poor family with the name of Kawamura Tokitar in 1760. He did not take the name of Hokusai until 28 years later. When he was four years old, he was adopted by the Nakajima artisan family.

And he was very unique in those works. If you look at his most famous and lesser famous pieces, you can distinguish a vitality in his life and an appreciation for the nature of everything. You can also see that he tried to capture the brutality and the tremendous power behind nature.
 * The art style** that Hokusai is most famous for would be ukiyo-e, as well as painting. He didn't pursue other forms of art and thus made himself famous, if in modern times versus their times. He may not have made much of a name for himself during his life, especially in the shadow of artists like Hiroshige, but he still published many works.


 * Apparently,** Hokusai has many interesting stories about his life and his art. They say that he moved around 93 times in his 89 long years of life. One of his pieces, //Maple Leaves on a River// was made very unconventionally. It is said that he took blue ink and splashed it on a huge piece of paper, then let chickens walk all over the paper with red ink on their feet. Both of these examples show how lively Hokusai was.

= = //"The Great Wave Under Kananagawa" -Hokusai, 1833// //"Page from Hokusai's Manga" -Hokusai, early 1800's// = = //"Carp in a Waterfall"- Hokusai, Unknown//
 * Some examples of Hokusai's works:**

**Citations: **

Katsushika, Hokusai. //A page from Hokusai//. Early 19th Century. Photograph. Wikimedia. Web. 29 Feb 2012. .

Katsushika, Hokusai. //The Great Wave Under Kanagawa//. 1833. Painting. WikimediaWeb. 29 Feb 2012. .

Katsushika, Hokusai. //Carp in a Waterfall//. N.d. Painting. Katsushika Hokusai- The Complete Works. Web. 29 Feb 2012. . Katsushika, Hokusai. //A Portrait//. N.d. Photograph. WikimediaWeb. 29 Feb 2012. .