Katsushika Hokusai, My Nonsensical Picture Dictionary. Vol. 2, The Sumida Hokusai Museum.
The Sumida Hokusai Museum in Tokyo is presently holding an exhibition titled Commemorating a Decade: Open the Drawing Manual—Sketches by Hokusai and Many More. It will be held in two terms. The first term will run until April 19. The second will commence on April 21 and continue until May 24. A number of like-for-like substitutions will take place prior to the opening of the second term.
As the title indicates, this exhibition celebrates the ten-year anniversary of the Sumida Hokusai Museum. Located in the hometown of Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849), the museum has established itself as an invaluable addition to Tokyo's cultural inventory.
Its prodigious turnout of special exhibitions on a broad range of themes has been a feature of its first decade. Repeat visitors can confidently expect to encounter something unexpected and new.
Drawing Instruction in Edo Japan
The present exhibition showcases drawing manuals, or Edehon, designed for anyone interested in drawing. As with the ukiyo-e (woodblock prints) characteristic of Hokusai and his Edo-era contemporaries, the manuals were published as woodblock-printed books.
Katsushika Hokusai's most famous Edehon was (and remains) Hokusai manga, better known as Sketches by Hokusai. First published in 1814, it is still available in woodblock printed form. Sketches by Hokusai is ranked alongside Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji as an undisputed Hokusai masterpiece.
A standard technique in drawing instruction is the use of a compass and a ruler to draw straight lines, circles, and curved lines. In addition, kana and kanji characters naturally lend themselves to the creation of moji-e illustrations. In Hokusai's first drawing manual, humorously titled My Nonsensical Picture Dictionary, the moji-e technique is demonstrated.
Another style of drawing manual was a collection of illustrations for the student to copy. In this way, developing artists could learn how to draw details. Tadamori Catches the Old Priest is a color print based on an illustration from Picture Book of Chinese and Japanese Warriors, Vol. 1, by Hokusai. The artist Makita Toshichika was not a follower of the Katsushika school but did employ Hokusai's manuals nonetheless. This demonstrates the broad reach of his picture books.
The Legacy of Hokusai's Sketches
The drawing manuals were commonly sold in wrappers. As the manuals were not purchased as collectible works of art, the wrappers were often discarded. The wrappers are typically impressive pieces of art in their own right, but as in the case of the boxes of collectible toys, a few of the wrappers were not discarded. Wrapper for An Illustrated Book of the Treatise on Loyalty, Katushika Isai, has fortuitously survived the nearly 200 years since the manual contained within it was sold.
Sketches by Hokusai contains 15 volumes, published over many years, with the final volume in 1879, twenty-nine years after Hokusai's death. The woodblocks passed through the hands of several publishers. In 1911, they were acquired by a publishing company in Kyoto, where they survived the ravages of the Asia-Pacific War and are still used for reprints today. The most recent reprinting was in 2017. Sketches by Hokusai thereby has feet in both the present and the past. It retains its utility as an instructional manual, while its method of production preserves historic printing techniques.
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Author: Paul de Vries
