Katsushika Hokusai (1769-1849) was one of the greatest of the Japanese print designers, painters and book illustrators, and by far the most famous Asian artist in the West. This richly illustrated monograph provides an overview of the master's life and works in all media. Comprising introductory essays, seven chapters embracing Hokusai's entire career and some 700 illustrations, it presents and analyses a large selection of Hokusai's finest works in all media, covering his whole career and giving a scholarly and up-to-date interpretation of the artist and his significance. This big and beautiful book presents a comprehensive survey of the work of one of Japan's greatest and most influential artists, together with a collection of essays that focus on a key aspects of the master's career. The book opens with an introductory essay by Gian Carlo Calza presenting an overview of the changing world Hokusai was born into and lived through. This is followed by a series of essays by distinguished Western and Japanese scholars that present new research on a range of crucial areas of interest in Hokusai studies. These provide a context for the core of the book, which forms a retrospective of H

Author Biography

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, and is currently preparing a catalogue raisonne of Hokusai's paintings. In 2004 he was awarded the prestigious Uchiyama Prize by the International Ukiyo-e Society of Tokyo. The contributors: Roger S. Keyes is Visiting Professor in the History of Art at Brown University, an Associate in Research at the Edwin O. Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies at Harvard 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 Professor Emeritus of East Asian Art, Harvard University, and Curator of Asian Art at the Harvard University Art Museums Richard Lane (d.2004) was 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 the Gakushuin University, Tokyo