Original subtitles

SEINEN PRODUCTIONS

HOKUSAI

THE SEINEN COOPERATIVE KOZO IGAWA NAOKICHI SHIGA

KATUYOSHI NAWA YUKIO NAWA

Supervising Producers: NAKAKAGE OKABE SEIICHIRO TAKAHASHI

Producer: KOZO IGAWA Scriptwriter: MAKOTO YOSHIKAWA

Cinematographers: SUSUMU URASHIMA, HIROMI HASEGAWA JUNICHI SEGAWA

Director: HIROSHI TESHIGAHARA

Archive Materials: TOKYO NATIONAL MUSEUM

THE YEAR 1760

About 190 years ago, Hokusai Katsushika was born in Edo's Katsushika district.

The shogunate in Edo was beginning to crumble.

To prop itself up, the shogunate plundered the peasantry,

who began leaving the countryside for Edo and challenging samurai rule.

Edo's population at the time was 800,000.

HIROSHIGE

SUKEROKU: FLOWER OF EDO

Well now, well now... what do you think?

When it's the whores who know me

who give me shelter from the elements.

It was like the sky was raining pipes.

No matter how rich you are, or what a big shot you are,

that's not something money can buy.

Hey, samurai, if you make trouble,

I'll kick a boat up your nose.

What's going on here?

"Eating, shitting and fornicating - such is the world,

from the emperor to the common man."

The merchant class used their money and power

to challenge the samurai.

Their free thinking, unlike the bigotry of the idle samurai, earned the peasants trust.

"Nothing is as loud as the mosquitoes.

"They hum 'bunbu' (arms and letters), keeping me up all night."

The samurai, up to the shogun, indulged in worldly pleasures.

These were paid for by oppressing the peasantry with heavy taxes.

The economic domination of the robust merchant class,

had cultural effects as well, namely the flowering of "merchant art".

Ukiyo-e prints, departed from the conventions of aristocratic art.

The richly colored nishiki-e prints first appeared

in the form of courtesan portraits made popular by Harunobu Suzuki.

Hokusai was six years old at the time. KIYONAGA

At 14, Hokusai was apprenticed to a printmaker.

At 19, wishing to learn painting,

he began to study with Shunsho Katsukawa.

While Buncho, Kiyonaga, Toyoharu, and Utamaro

never tired of drawing the licensed quarters,

Hokusai sought out the teachings of all the painting schools.

such as the Kano, Tosa, Maruyama, and Korin schools.

He even studied Chinese painting.

All this time, he suffered agonizing poverty.

"The 23rd: rain - painted all day."

"This day last year, rice shortages caused widespread chaos." Kokan Shiba

At around this time, Hokusai met Kokan.

The subjects he learned directly from Kokan

were geometry, anatomy,

oil painting, and copperplate printing.

The scientific spirit of Kokan, who had studied Western arts and sciences,

deeply fascinated Hokusai.

Indeed, Kokan was Hokusai's greatest teacher.

It was he who showed him the way forward.

HOKUSAI

Thus Hokusai's unique style was born.

"Not flying high, though endowed with wings,

not bearing fruit though blooming."

This motto exemplifies Hokusai's desire for realism.

PERSPECTIVE LINES His fresh sensibility and bold forms

exerted, in fact,

PERSPECTIVE a great influence on modern Western art.

"All along the road, not a soul to be seen - twilight in autumn."

"Winter loneliness in a mountain village Grows deeper, when guests are gone, and Leaves are withered - troubling thoughts."

CARICATURES

"I truly don't have a cent today.

"I've just moved and need someone to lend me some money.

"Here I am, living in this fallen world, without even rice gruel to eat.

"I believe a Bodhisattva may save me yet." - Hokusai's third daughter, Oi

It's said that Hokusai had to move 93 times in his life.

He wore tatered clothes,

and his bamboo food containers were always empty.

Yet he painted all day until his eyes became blurry.

Hokusai accepted a life of poverty to serve his rich artistic talent.

His drawings, though loved by the commoners, were hated by the samurai.

His caricatures, in particular,

readily became a part of commoner life.

They vividly protrayed the lives of common folk,

while at the same time brazenly mocking the samurai.

Hokusai married twice,

but both his wives predeceased him.

He also had three daughters

and one grandson.

"The young lord's hemorrhoids are hereditary..."

From Hokusai's letters:

"My grandson has been leading a debauched life.

He's run up debt, and I've threatened to disown him.

The philanthropist Chobei Banzuiin sometimes intercedes,

so that I'll leave my grandson alone.

An old man, I suffer this hardship alone.

Finally I had to send him to his father in Oshu.

I'm worried he might run away at any moment

and return to Edo.

At least, for the moment, I can breathe a sigh of relief."

As he approached his final years, only his daughter Oi, came to his aid.

"Excessive pleasure leads to pain,

and enjoyment always follows a time of want."

Even though he was now living a life of prosperity,

Hokusai, alone among artists at the time, drew portraits of artisans at work.

"In 1837, Heihachiro Oshio led the Tembo uprising in Osaka."

"Let us show them the Buddhist Pure Land that awaits them after death."

Over 60 years had passed

since Hokusai had become

a printmaker's apprentice at 14.

Having witnessed the Anei, Tenmei, Kansei and Kyowa reigns

one as bad as another, Hokusai

lost faith in humanity.

Art became his life.

Calling himself, "old man crazy with painting", he threw himself into his work.

At 70, one finally begins to understand how plants and trees grow,

as well as the structure of birds, animals and fish," wrote Hokusai.

At 90, one's artistry deepens to the essence of things.

At 100, one may achieve a divine state in art.

At 110, every dot and every stroke will be as though alive."

Hokusai said he'd only become a real painter at the age of 100.

As he turned 90 and death approached, he declared,

"Grant me but another five years...

and I could become a true artist."

In 1849,

the second year of the Kaiei reign, on April 18th,

Hokusai's life came to a close in the seventh month of his 91st year.

"My soul now departs to its leisure and rest - the hot summer fields."

THE END