Katsushika
Hokusai
was
a
Japanese
artist,
ukiyo-e
painter
and
printmaker,
best
known
for
his Thirty-six
Views
of
Mount
Fuji.
Hokusai
began
painting
at
the
age
of
six,
but
did
not
officially
study
it
until
he
was
eighteen. He
apprenticed
and
studied
at
a
variety
of
studios,
eventually
developing
his
own
style
of ukiyo-e that
focused
on
the
daily
lives
of
Japanese
people
and
the
landscapes
surrounding
them.
This
represented
a
shift
in
the ukiyo-e style,
which
had
previously
depicted
courtesans
and
actors.
By
1800,
Hokusai
was
fairly
well-known
in
Japan,
teaching
his
own
students, publishing
collections
of
landscapes,
and
collaborating
with
authors
to
create
illustrated
books.
It...
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was
not
until
the
1820s,
however,
that
Hokusai
achieved
his
peak
of
artistic
fame
within
Japan,
with
the
publication
of Thirty-six
Views
of
Mount
Fuji,
including
his
most
famous
print, Great
Wave
off
Kanagawa.
In
the
1830s,
Hokusai
followed
up
this
incredibly
popular
collection
with One
Hundred
Views
of
Mount
Fuji,
another
significant
series
of
landscapes.
About
this
work,
he
wrote:
"From
around
the
age
of
six,
I
had
the
habit
of
sketching
from
life.
I
became
an
artist,
and
from
fifty
on
began
producing
works
that
won
some
reputation,
but
nothing
I
did
before
the
age
of
seventy
was
worthy
of
attention.
At
seventy-three,
I
began
to
grasp
the
structures
of
birds
and
beasts,
insects
and
fish,
and
of
the
way
plants
grow.
If
I
go
on
trying,
I
will
surely
understand
them
still
better
by
the
time
I
am
eighty-six,
so
that
by
ninety
I
will
have
penetrated
to
their
essential
nature.
At
one
hundred,
I
may
well
have
a
positively
divine
understanding
of
them,
while
at
one
hundred
and
thirty,
forty,
or
more
I
will
have
reached
the
stage
where
every
dot
and
every
stroke
I
paint
will
be
alive.
May
Heaven,
that
grants
long
life,
give
me
the
chance
to
prove
that
this
is
no
lie."
He
continued
painting
until
his
death in
1849,
constantly
seeking
to
produce
better
work.
