HOKUSAI oban Niskikie (1760 -1849) - Lot 222

HOKUSAI oban Niskikie (1760 -1849) The great wave of kanagawa, Kanagawa oki namiura plate, Oban yoko-e from the series Fugaku sanju rokkei the thirty-six views of Mount Fuji, Nisihiki woodcut, rice paper (washi), print not centered on the sheet Signed Hokusai aratame Iitsu hitsu. 37.5x 25.2 cm Stains, paper slightly creased Vertical trace, straight watermark technique of the period, framed by water drains on sieves HOKUSAI oban Niskikie (1760 -1849) from Tokyo. In the early 19th century, he was a major artist of the Chomin Bunka movement, a popular culture especially around Tokyo. He is reputed to have fused several ancient artistic movements such as kano, Tosa and rimpa with Western painting. The wave brought it immediate success in Japan. In Europe, Japanese prints were immediately collected by the Impressionists. Many of them can be found in famous paintings from Monet to Vuillard. Comparison : - Examples held in public institutions: Musée Guimet, Metropolitan Museum of New-York, British Museum and the Bibliothèque Nationale de France - This print is cloudless, like those in the British Museum and Victoria Albert Museum. There are no traces of Prussian blue. - Compared with the MET print, our print is framed by a slightly more accentuated black line on Mount Fuji. - In the later prints, the importance of the clouds has diminished the power of the wave.