The greatest Japanese artist:

HOKOUSAÏ

The painter Claude Monet, during a stay in Holland, noticed at a grocer's a batch of Japanese prints which the merchant used to wrap his goods, while complaining about the lack of solidity of these papers... The landscaper bought the prints, and this is how Hokousal's art was revealed to him.

Indeed, it was only at the end of the 19th century that Europe knew the productions of Japanese masters, dispersed outside the Empire following the revolution of 1868 which shook it up.
The Western world gaped in surprise. in front of the way of drawing and painting of Japanese artists, a way so different from European artists! but, soon charmed, won over, he loved these poetic images whose beauty he learned to appreciate.

We knew the names of the genius painters who created delicate marvels: Horunobou, Kiyonaga, Outamaro, etc. But it did not take long for one name to dominate all the others and to sum up, in itself, Japanese art in the eyes of Europeans. :Hokusai. And truly this master deserves to be famous, because, if his innumerable work is truly beautiful, his story is no less so. Hokousal was a living example of courageous perseverance.

Around Tokyo, in 1760, Tokitaro Hokousal was born, in a modest artisan interior. His mother, however, was of noble origin and proudly recounted how her father died defending his lord; it was from her, undoubtedly, that the artist derived his refined taste and the great dignity of his existence.

Nakajima Icé, the child's father, or adoptive father, chiseled strange and famous mirrors, on which the little boy's first glances rested, who felt his vocation as a designer born while leafing through images; and we imagine this Japanese child, like a doll with slanted eyes, wandering his daydreams under the cherry trees, on the banks of the Soumida-Gava, forming plans for the future and observing all things around him, with a keen eye. eye already singularly observant.

Around the age of fourteen, Hokousai became an apprentice engraver; he left his father's house, and his wandering life as a brilliant beggar began. At eighteen, he became a painter. First a student of Shunsho, he illustrated tales of which he was often the author, and which were entitled: The Little Violet of Yeddo, The Open Mind is Very Precious, The Couriers of Kamakoura, The Four Celestial Kings of Points cardinals dressed in the latest fashion... All this signed with various names which disguise his personality.

Hokousal worked with several masters, searching for his path. He produced enormously, but did not earn enough to live on... He spent his youth in poverty and sometimes was even forced to sell diaries in the streets. At the height of his distress, he received the order for a painted banner, on the occasion of a festival, and, from that moment, the poor artist took up his brushes again and, some time later, he signed “Hokusai-Shinsei”, meaning: “the genius of the northern constellation.” » On New Year's Day 1799, the painter officially announced his change of name.

With his frenzied verve, Hokousal paints everything he sees: women, children, common people, landscapes, animals, flowers and he performs artistic acrobatics:

one day, using a broom, he represented, in Indian ink, the bust of a god, on a sheet of two hundred square meters; another time, on a grain of wheat, he draws two sparrows. In 1806, it is said that, on a panel of paper, the comedian depicted the blue waters and on this painting he placed a rooster whose legs he had dipped in the red color: the bird walked in all directions, and the Assistants thought they saw, in this singular work, the waves of the Tutsoura River carrying purple maple leaves. And this earned Hokousal to be distinguished by the Shogun.

However, despite this supreme honor, despite his relentless work, despite his notoriety, the painter remained extremely poor. A nomad, he changed accommodation ninety-three times during his lifetime. In his old age, he moved to escape his grandson's creditors who harassed him. His frail wooden house burned down in 1839, and the artist lost a large collection of his most cherished drawings.

In the middle of so many thorns, a rose: Hokusaï had near him his daughter Oyéi, an artist herself, who looked after the old man with the most tender devotion. She tried to earn some money thanks to her brushes, or by creating an eau de rejuvene and telling fortunes... Anguishing struggle of two artists against inexorable poverty.

Proud, pure, dignified, under his rags, the master worked until his last days with a sort of frenzy. In 1834, when presenting: The Hundred Kills of Fouzi-Yama, Hokousai wrote in the preface this admirable profession of faith:

“Since the age of six, I had a mania for drawing the shape of objects. By the age of fifty I had published countless drawings, but not everything I produced before the age of seventy is worth counting. It was at the age of seventy-three that I understood roughly the structure of true nature, of animals, herbs, trees, birds, fish and insects. Therefore, at the age of eighty, I will have made even more progress; at ninety, I will penetrate the mystery of things; at a hundred years old, I will definitely have reached a degree of marvel, and when I am a hundred and ten years old, with me, whether a point or a line, everything will be alive. I ask those who will live as long as I have to see if I will keep my word. Written at the age of seventy-five by me, formerly Hokousal, today Gwakio Rojin, the old man crazy about drawing.
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In 1848, when, at the age of eighty-nine, he felt death coming, the poor artist wanted to prolong his days to improve himself: “If heaven gave me just five more years of life,” he said, “I could become a truly great painter. » This example of love of art, of hard work, is a great lesson for all of us: to encourage us, let us think of Hokousal's confession. Whatever our profession and whatever our age, let us always strive to do better, to move forward, to get closer to the dream ideal.

It is not possible to speak of the formidable work of the Japanese master in a few lines. The Louvre Museum has his color prints, his drawings, and also his mousemonos (small illustrated sheets about a party among tea drinkers), wonderfully executed. By observing the sureness of the line, the frankness of the tone, we discover how Hokousal was the faithful translator of Nature. The landscapes which dominate the tragic silhouette of Fouzi-Yama, its flowers and its animals bear witness to this eloquently. Finally, when he represents the scenes of daily life, the thousand aspects of the street, humble humanity at work, in pleasure or in pain, the painter, emerging from the people, asserts himself as a popular genius.

ALIX.