Katsushika Hokusai’s woodblock prints, “Dragon” & “Two Phoenixes”, 1815

Katsushika Hokusai (葛飾 北斎) (1760–1849)

“Dragon” & “Two Phoenixes”, 1815, two woodblock illustrations from "Hokusai's Sketches" (北斎漫画) (aka “Hokusai Manga”; “Ten Thousand Sketches by Hokusai: Ehon”), vol. 2, (right plate) page 5 and (left plate) page 6, published in Nagoyaby by Eirakuya Tōshirō (永楽屋東四郎) (fl.1813–1842) (see http://pulverer.si.edu/node/663/title/2).

Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery offers the following details about the volume in which this pair of woodblock plates feature:

“Volume II from Hokusai's set of Manga, intended as primers for aspiring artists. In this series of 15 volumes, designed from around 1813 through his final years, Hokusai produced a veritable pictorial encyclopedia of Far Eastern life and legend. The series was originally intended as a set of copybooks for art students but soon made the artist's name known throughout Japan and, eventually, throughout the world. Volume II includes 50 illustrations with black, blue and orange inks. Depicts people, landscapes, birds, animals, bugs, and plants. Page 1 and 2 are text. 53 pages” (https://web-kiosk.scrippscollege.edu/objects-1/info/20397).

Two woodblock prints printed in three colours (black, grey and pale flesh/orange) on a single sheet of washi paper with centre fold and margins as published (but without the binding edges).

Size: (sheet) 24 x 28.6 cm; (image borderline) 17.7 x 25.5 cm.

Condition: well-printed impressions showing no sign of wear to the printing plate in excellent/near pristine condition with no tears, holes, abrasions, stains, foxing or signs of handling.

I am selling this sheet of woodblock prints featuring an airborne dragon and a pair of phoenixes by one of the most famous of the Japanese printmakers, for the total cost of [deleted] at the time of this listing) including Express Mail (EMS) postage and handling to anywhere in the world, but not (of course) any import duties/taxes imposed by some countries.

If you are interested in purchasing this superb leaf of original woodblock prints by the almost legendary Hokusai, please contact me (oz_jim@printsandprinciples.com) and I will send you a PayPal invoice to make the payment easy.

This pair of prints has been sold

Two Hokusai woodblock prints from “Hokusai’s Sketches”, 1815

Katsushika Hokusai (葛飾 北斎) (1760–1849)

Two woodblock illustrations from "Hokusai's Sketches" (北斎漫画) (aka “Hokusai Manga”; “Ten Thousand Sketches by Hokusai: Ehon”), 1815, vol. 2, (left) page 59 and (right) pages 56, published in Nagoyaby by Eirakuya Tōshirō (永楽屋東四郎) (fl.1813–1842) (see http://pulverer.si.edu/node/663/title/2).

Regarding the curious image of the goat, Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery offers the following insights:

“… a goat-like creature with three eyes looking out of its side, the suggestion of four more eyes on the front of its face and two pairs of horns, one at the top of its head and the other coming out of its back. It is posed in a very animalistic position, as if it was grazing but without a background to place it in context. The style speaks to Hokusai's fascination with the grotesque, and his impressive imagination. His use of fine lines depicts the detail of the fur along the back, hoofs and tail. Hokusai was able to take a familiar animal, the goat, and turn it into something supernatural and fantasized” (https://web-kiosk.scrippscollege.edu/objects-1/info/20397).

Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery also offers the following background information about the volume in which these prints feature:

“Volume II from Hokusai's set of Manga, intended as primers for aspiring artists. In this series of 15 volumes, designed from around 1813 through his final years, Hokusai produced a veritable pictorial encyclopedia of Far Eastern life and legend. The series was originally intended as a set of copybooks for art students but soon made the artist's name known throughout Japan and, eventually, throughout the world. Volume II includes 50 illustrations with black, blue and orange inks. Depicts people, landscapes, birds, animals, bugs, and plants” (op. cit.).

Two woodblock prints printed in three colours (black, grey and pale flesh/orange) on a single sheet of washi paper with centre fold and margins as published (but without the binding edges).

Size: (sheet) 23.9 x 28.9 cm; (image borderline) 17.5 x 25.1 cm.

Condition: excellent, but slightly grey impressions showing no sign of wear to the printing plate in near pristine condition with no tears, holes, abrasions, stains, foxing or signs of handling.

I am selling this sheet of woodblock prints featuring a curiously wonderful many-eyed goat and seventeen small critters (viz. a wasp on its nest, butterflies, a worm, leeches, lizards, spiders, a ladybird and bugs that I assume are millipedes) by one of the most famous of the Japanese printmakers, for the total cost of [deleted[ at the time of this listing) including Express Mail (EMS) postage and handling to anywhere in the world, but not (of course) any import duties/taxes imposed by some countries.

If you are interested in purchasing this superb leaf of original woodblock prints by the almost legendary Hokusai, please contact me (oz_jim@printsandprinciples.com) and I will send you a PayPal invoice to make the payment easy.

This print has been sold 

Katsushika Hokusai’s woodblock print, “Mount Fuji seen from the shore”

Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849)

“Mount Fuji seen from the shore” (Kaihin no Fuji), from “One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji” (Fugaku hyakkei) Vol. 3, Edo period, circa 1835-1847

Woodblock print with margins as published.

Size: (sheet) 23.9 x 16.1 cm

Condition: slightly grey and worn impression suggesting that it may have been printed in the later edition of 1860. The right margin has the publication binding holes. The sheet is in near excellent condition.

I am selling this genuine woodcut by Hokusai (albeit an impression from a worn plate) for a total cost of [deleted] at the time of this listing) including postage and handling to anywhere in the world.

If you are interested in purchasing this original Hokusai print pulled from the original plate, please contact me (oz_jim@printsandprinciples.com) and I will send you a PayPal invoice to make the payment easy.

This print has been sold

After my previous discussion about Paulus Bril’s (c.1553/4–1626) etching celebrating the early European tradition of “Weltlandschaft” (World Landscape), I have decided to find a parallel world in this woodblock print by the legendary Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849).

Like the Weltlandschaft tradition underpinning Bril’s earlier landscapes (viz. portraying ideal landscape synthesising the spirit of the world with dramatic viewpoints, craggy mountains and folk engaged in important duties seen from afar), Hokusai’s print also presents the landscape with reverence. By this, I mean that the scene portrayed is far from a tourist’s snap shot of Mt Fuji observed through a stone arch. This is a view of Mt Fuji mediated through the tradition of Gongshi (spirit stones).

As a brief account of this reverence for seeing and feeling spirit in stone, there are five fundamental principles:

1. “shou” (thinness): structural foundations within the stone that shapes its outer surface. In this print, I see the principle of shou expressed by the small shifts of direction on the surface of the rock that draw attention to the broad form of the rock arch—a bit like how the sagging skin of very elderly folk hangs from their bones and reveals the form of the bones.

2. “zhou” (wrinkles): surface textures arising from how natural forces have shaped the rock. There are a host of names for each wrinkle type deemed desirable (e.g. jiqu zhou [chicken-bone wrinkles], hutao zhou [walnut wrinkles] and heye zhou [lotus-leaf wrinkles][Rosenblum, 2001, p. 143]).

3. “lou” (hollowness): the literal meaning of this term is “to leak” and this notion is all about sensing a larger whole from a small sample. In this print the hole created by the stone arch “talks” to us about what is missing in the rock (i.e. what the rock arch would look like as a whole rock before it turned into an arch).

4. “tou” (penetrated): holes within the rock that give mystery and take the mind to the secret spirit world and life-force within the rock. In the print this hole created by the arch is critical to the meaning of the print as it captures a view of Mt Fuji—a very spiritual place for the Japanese—within it.

5. “qi” (life force): dynamic inner tensions within the stone that give form to its surface. In this print, I see qi expressed in the patterning of shrubbery on the surface of the rock arch in the sense that the patterning is driven by the underlying structural form.