The artist we know today as Hokusai was born in 1760 in Edo (present-day Tokyo), Japan. Though the artist went by nearly thirty different names in his lifetime, he began calling himself Hokusai around 1798. It was common for artists to adopt different names to delineate different careers. As a child growing up in a family of artisans, the artist was called Tokitarō. His father was a mirror-maker for the Tokugawa Shogunate.110 At the
age of fourteen, Hokusai became an apprentice to a woodblock carver; four years later, he entered the studio of the ukiyo-e artist Katsukawa Shunshō, where he spent ten years learning drawing, painting, and woodblock printing techniques. Hokusai’s mature style was impacted by the Dutch art he encountered at this time.
Ukiyo-e woodblock prints had become tremendously popular and widespread in Edo period Japan. Ukiyo-e referred to “pictures of the floating world.” “Floating world” refers to the Buddhist concept of impermanence. These were regarded as cheap commercial products. Prints were available in shops and from street vendors, and a common print cost about as much as a bowl of noodles. After the artist Shunshō died, his studio, which was known as the Katsukawa school, continued. However, Hokusai moved on to
join the Tawaraya school. In 1798, he left to work as an independent artist, and ultimately, he began accumulating followers of his own. These followers included his youngest daughter, Katsushika Ōi, also known as Ei, who assisted her father with his
work and also created art on her own. Hokusai distinguished himself by moving away from traditional ukiyo-e subjects like courtesans and actors. Instead, he embraced landscapes and scenes of everyday life.
One of Hokusai's most well known works, Under the Wave of Kanagawa, is pictured below.
