7 ms·

Hokusai's five ghoulish prints for the series Hyaku Monogatari (ca. 1830)

117 points by crescit_eundo 2y ago

bcraven 2y ago
Recommend BBC documentary about Hokusai, going into each period of his work: https://docuwiki.net/index.php?title=Hokusai:_Old_Man_Crazy_to_Paint https://docuwiki.net/index.php?title=Hokusai:_Old_Man_Crazy_...
j_moulin32 2y ago
I'm glad he never got to the print where a man is haunted for watching to much online 'entertainment' - that would have bothered me
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
doctorhandshake 2y ago
Related: Yoshitoshi’s “New Forms of 36 Ghosts”, available as an (out-of-print) book: https://www.roningallery.com/exhibitions/Yoshitoshi-36-Ghosts-and-Strange-Apparitions https://www.roningallery.com/exhibitions/Yoshitoshi-36-Ghost...
Muromec 2y ago
Hokusai is great and as with all ukiyo-e, you can buy a nice reprint for around hundred bucks. It was supposed to be mass-produced and not be in a single exemplair somewhere on a wall in museum.
- mikeryan 2y ago
  These are all from the Library of Congress you can download high res TIFFs for them and print them yourself. Here’s one. https://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/cph.3g08749/ https://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/cph.3g08749/
  - Muromec 2y ago
    That's not exactly the same.
    - yial 2y ago
      I think the person you’re responding to may mean “have them professionally printed” - where you can have a museum quality print, or even have it printed on canvas etc. for example: a 16x20 canvas print in decent quality is ~$20.
      - grey-area 2y ago
        Hokusai’s prints do not belong on canvas, please don't do that, paper is fine.
      - Muromec 2y ago
        That's not ukiyo-e, it's a copy ukiyo-e made on a printer. You can just have a real thing that is actually ukiyo-e from original forms. If it's not scam of course.
SapporoChris 2y ago
The last image Obsession (Shûnen) the article mentions is a Swastika which though technically correct is actually a Sauvastika. The Swastika associated with Nazi bends to the right. The most common Japanese reading for 卍 the symbol that bends to the left is Manji. The 卍 (manji) symbol is frequently used to indicate a temple on maps in Japan, although due to confusion that tourists frequently have regarding 卍 and 卐 this is slowly changing.
- mytailorisrich 2y ago
  Yes, it's a classical Buddhist symbol (and Hinduist), hence why it's used to indicate Buddhist temples on maps and appears here in Hokusai's art.
- 0xbadcafebee 2y ago
  Fwiw the term 'sauvastika' was invented in 1850 by European scholars to try to describe/explain why sometimes it went the other direction. These are the same geniuses who helped popularize the myth of the "Aryans" that led to Hitler's idiotic interpretation (he literally thought "Aryans" were Nordic peoples who invaded India, descended from the lost city of Atlantis, despite the actual Indo-Aryan people being basically Iranian...). The word doesn't mean anything and you can just say swastika. Some cultures have specific meanings for specific directions, like how for Buddhists the left-turning one represents the Buddha's footprints, and for Hindus the right-turning one represents the expansion of the universe. 'The one associated with the Nazis' is therefore also associated with many other cultures and uses, but we Westerners being poorly educated and not exposed to other cultures, can only focus on the Western symbolism (ignoring how it was a popular symbol throughout the West from 1880-1920).
  - ahazred8ta 2y ago
    There were youth groups whose surviving members are still salty about having to shut down. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%22order+of+the+white+swastika%22&ia=web https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%22order+of+the+white+swastika%22&...
hipnoizz 2y ago
Accidentally yesterday I watched 'Miss Hokusai' about a daughter of the artist - she was a painter herself. The (animated) movie can be seen as a series of episodes, with the relations between Katsushika Ōi and her father being one of the subjects presented. From a quick glance at the (English) Wikipedia page about Hokusai I could spot some divergences compared to the movie. Anyway, I enjoyed the move quite a bit.
maxbond 2y ago
If you're in Kansas City, you might check out the Hokusai exhibit in the Nelson-Atkins (which runs until Jan 5th). I particularly enjoyed some prints from Hokusai's daughters they of women at work (as fishermen, farmers, geisha). There were also some learning materials created by Hokusai, like diagrams explaining methods to make characters seem balanced, or stock art gridded for transfer. It was an interesting peek being the curtain.
cinntaile 2y ago
Uniqlo recently released tshirts with some of these prints on. Oiwa-san was on one of them. They also had a few tshirts with the great wave and some from Hiroshige's 53 stations of the Tokkaido road. They're good quality tshirts. Probably sold out though.
- derr1 2y ago
  I picked up a few in Tokyo, nice quality, cool prints!

117 points by crescit_eundo 2y ago

Recommend BBC documentary about Hokusai, going into each period of his work: https://docuwiki.net/index.php?title=Hokusai:_Old_Man_Crazy_to_Paint https://docuwiki.net/index.php?title=Hokusai:_Old_Man_Crazy_...

j_moulin32 2y ago

I'm glad he never got to the print where a man is haunted for watching to much online 'entertainment' - that would have bothered me

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

doctorhandshake 2y ago

Related: Yoshitoshi’s “New Forms of 36 Ghosts”, available as an (out-of-print) book: https://www.roningallery.com/exhibitions/Yoshitoshi-36-Ghosts-and-Strange-Apparitions https://www.roningallery.com/exhibitions/Yoshitoshi-36-Ghost...

Muromec 2y ago

Hokusai is great and as with all ukiyo-e, you can buy a nice reprint for around hundred bucks. It was supposed to be mass-produced and not be in a single exemplair somewhere on a wall in museum.

mikeryan 2y ago
These are all from the Library of Congress you can download high res TIFFs for them and print them yourself. Here’s one. https://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/cph.3g08749/ https://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/cph.3g08749/
- Muromec 2y ago
  That's not exactly the same.
  - yial 2y ago
    I think the person you’re responding to may mean “have them professionally printed” - where you can have a museum quality print, or even have it printed on canvas etc. for example: a 16x20 canvas print in decent quality is ~$20.
    - grey-area 2y ago
      Hokusai’s prints do not belong on canvas, please don't do that, paper is fine.
    - Muromec 2y ago
      That's not ukiyo-e, it's a copy ukiyo-e made on a printer. You can just have a real thing that is actually ukiyo-e from original forms. If it's not scam of course.

SapporoChris 2y ago

The last image Obsession (Shûnen) the article mentions is a Swastika which though technically correct is actually a Sauvastika. The Swastika associated with Nazi bends to the right. The most common Japanese reading for 卍 the symbol that bends to the left is Manji. The 卍 (manji) symbol is frequently used to indicate a temple on maps in Japan, although due to confusion that tourists frequently have regarding 卍 and 卐 this is slowly changing.

mytailorisrich 2y ago
Yes, it's a classical Buddhist symbol (and Hinduist), hence why it's used to indicate Buddhist temples on maps and appears here in Hokusai's art.
0xbadcafebee 2y ago
Fwiw the term 'sauvastika' was invented in 1850 by European scholars to try to describe/explain why sometimes it went the other direction. These are the same geniuses who helped popularize the myth of the "Aryans" that led to Hitler's idiotic interpretation (he literally thought "Aryans" were Nordic peoples who invaded India, descended from the lost city of Atlantis, despite the actual Indo-Aryan people being basically Iranian...). The word doesn't mean anything and you can just say swastika. Some cultures have specific meanings for specific directions, like how for Buddhists the left-turning one represents the Buddha's footprints, and for Hindus the right-turning one represents the expansion of the universe. 'The one associated with the Nazis' is therefore also associated with many other cultures and uses, but we Westerners being poorly educated and not exposed to other cultures, can only focus on the Western symbolism (ignoring how it was a popular symbol throughout the West from 1880-1920).
- ahazred8ta 2y ago
  There were youth groups whose surviving members are still salty about having to shut down. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%22order+of+the+white+swastika%22&ia=web https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%22order+of+the+white+swastika%22&...

hipnoizz 2y ago

Accidentally yesterday I watched 'Miss Hokusai' about a daughter of the artist - she was a painter herself. The (animated) movie can be seen as a series of episodes, with the relations between Katsushika Ōi and her father being one of the subjects presented. From a quick glance at the (English) Wikipedia page about Hokusai I could spot some divergences compared to the movie. Anyway, I enjoyed the move quite a bit.

maxbond 2y ago

If you're in Kansas City, you might check out the Hokusai exhibit in the Nelson-Atkins (which runs until Jan 5th). I particularly enjoyed some prints from Hokusai's daughters they of women at work (as fishermen, farmers, geisha). There were also some learning materials created by Hokusai, like diagrams explaining methods to make characters seem balanced, or stock art gridded for transfer. It was an interesting peek being the curtain.

cinntaile 2y ago

Uniqlo recently released tshirts with some of these prints on. Oiwa-san was on one of them. They also had a few tshirts with the great wave and some from Hiroshige's 53 stations of the Tokkaido road. They're good quality tshirts. Probably sold out though.

derr1 2y ago
I picked up a few in Tokyo, nice quality, cool prints!