Search results for ""Author Sarah E. Thompson""

The first book to focus exclusively on Hokusai’s landscapes, by one of the world’s leading ukiyo-e specialists The best known of all Japanese artists, Katsushika Hokusai was active as a painter, book illustrator and print designer throughout his ninety-year lifespan. Yet his most famous works of all – the colour woodblock landscape prints issued in series, beginning with Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji – were produced within a relatively short time, in an amazing burst of creative energy that lasted from about 1830 to 1836. Hokusai’s landscapes not only revolutionized Japanese printmaking but within a few decades of his death had become icons of world art as well. With stunning colour reproductions of works from the largest collection of Japanese prints outside Japan, this book examines the magnetic appeal of Hokusai’s designs and the circumstances of their creation. The book includes all published prints of the artist’s eight major landscape series: Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji (1830–32), A Tour of Waterfalls in Various Provinces (1833–34), Snow, Moon and Flowers (1833), Eight Views of the Ryukyu Islands (1832–33), One Thousand Pictures of the Ocean (1832–33), Remarkable Views of Bridges in Various Provinces (1834), A True Mirror of Chinese and Japanese Poetry (1833) and One Hundred Poems Explained by the Nurse (1835). Working prolifically in the years just before Japan opened to the West in 1853, Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849) was the first Japanese artist to be internationally recognized. His cleverly composed ukiyo-e prints of everyday life and the landscapes of Edo Japan arrived in a 19th-century Europe gripped by Japonisme-mania, where they influenced artists such as Degas, Gauguin, Manet and Van Gogh.

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In Edo Japan, woodblock prints known as ukiyo-e (“pictures of the Floating World”) captured the entertainment culture of the urban elite and eventually many other subjects as well. These beautiful prints were the result of a meticulous craft process, in which an artist’s initial drawing was translated by expert carvers into multiple printing blocks for different colours. In this attractive volume, Sarah E. Thompson, curator of Japanese art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, provides a highly readable overview of the cultural and artistic history of ukiyo-e, showcasing 120 exceptional prints from the museum’s world-class collection, by masters including Utamaro, Hokusai, and Hiroshige. She explores each of the principal genres in turn: beauty and fashion, the kabuki theatre, landscape, nature, history and literature, and fantasy. Pictures of the Floating World features a traditional Japanese stab binding and is housed in a durable slipcase together with three remarkable prints, suitable for framing. It will be a must-have for all art lovers.

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How artists have interpreted the intrigues and love stories of The Tale of Genji, one of the world’s oldest novels Lady Murasaki’s Tale of Genji has delighted readers for more than 1,000 years and inspired writers to create numerous parodies. Artists have responded with a rich parallel tradition illustrating the courtly intrigues, love affairs and shifting alliances of the epic novel, as well as its retellings. This lavishly illustrated volume explores interpretations of the original story and its spinoffs by Japanese master printmakers such as Kunisada, as well as Hiroshige, Suzuki Harunobu and Chobunsai Eishi, bringing the characters to life in dazzling woodblock prints from the peerless collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. With insightful commentary from a leading Japanese print scholar, this book invites readers to explore the colorful world of The Tale of Genji and its visual afterlife.

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How artists from Hiroshige and Kuniyoshi to Whistler and Arthur Wesley Dow embraced and transformed Hokusai’s dynamic style and innovations The great painter, book illustrator and print designer Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849) has become the best known of all Japanese artists and one of the most famous and influential artists in the world. He was a key figure for the Japonisme movement in late 19th-century Europe, and his iconic images—especially the color woodblock print nicknamed “The Great Wave”—are frequently referred to in present-day art in both serious and frivolous forms, from sculpture, printmaking and painting to anime and emojis. This book looks at Hokusai from the viewpoint of fellow artists who incorporated lessons learned from him into their own work, including Hokusai’s own students, his contemporary rivals and his many posthumous admirers working in a wide range of mediums, in Japan and around the world, from the late 19th century to the present. Lavishly illustrated and accompanied by illuminating and engaging texts, this publication invites readers to encounter the origins and enduring appeal of Hokusai’s delightful art. Artists include: Félix Bracquemond, John Cederquist, Arthur Wesley Dow, Hiroshige, Sori Hishikawa, Hokkei, Hokusai, Winslow Homer, Loïs Mailou Jones, Henri Gustave Jossot, Shun’ei Katsukawa, Shunsho Katsukawa, Oi Katsushika, Eisen Keisai, Korin, Kuniyoshi, Paul Legrand, Manjiro Hokuga, Ogata Korin, Odilon Redon, Henri Rivière, Hoitsu Sakai, Hokuju Shotei, Hokushu Shunkosai, Kogan Tobari, Hokkei Totoya, Toyoharu Utagawa, Utamasa, Édouard Vuillard, James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Samuel Wilson and Shigenobu Yanagawa.

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