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拍品专文
Katsushika Hokusai’s Under the Wave Off Kanagawa
Even now, after almost two centuries, it seems highly unlikely that there will ever be a more iconic artwork, globally, than Hokusai’s ‘Kanagawa Wave.’ Popularly known as ‘The Great Wave,’ it is officially titled ‘Under the Wave Off Kanagawa.’ This composition of 1830 by Katsushika Hokusai, 1760-1849, keeps fascinating the world. But what exactly is it that fascinates us? Is it the movement of the rising wave, or the struggle of the rowers in the three boats, or is it the image rhyme, the visual repetition of Mount Fuji in the small wave in the left foreground. Or the contradiction that a wave can make Mount Fuji with its 3776 meters high look like a distant dwarf? Whatever it may be, in contemporary imagery, the image of the giant wave has come to stand for power, speed, and progress, and is used in advertisements for cars, for fitness training, for saunas, and even, turned into a wave of rubbish, in the war against environmental pollution.
Quite understandably, nothing like that was on Hokusai’s mind when he started this design to be part of his unheard-of novel concept of an ōban size series of Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, Fugaku sanjūrokkei, to be published by Nishimuraya Yohachi. Of course, there had been a group of Western style prints by Hokusai’s pupil Hokujū, in the later 1800s, and a somewhat similar group by Ryūryūkyo Shinsai, all featuring a margin with ‘Dutch’ lettering, in the early 1820s. But a publisher agreeing to publish this Hokusai series of Mount Fuji, to be comprised of thirty-six designs, as the series title specifies, was unprecedented. But when the first instalment of ten prints had been issued, this must have been such an unexpected and direct success, that both Hokusai and his publisher Nishimuraya Yohachi dared make an announcement in the first month of 1831, that the series might well exceed thirty-six designs, and be comprised of ‘a hundred.’
In such an optimistic spirit, it should not surprise us that the three acknowledged absolute masterpieces were also part of this first group: Shower Below the Summit, Fuji in Clear Weather, and Under the Wave Off Kanagawa. All prints in this first instalment bear the signature ‘By the brush of Hokusai, changing his name to Iitsu,’ Hokusai aratame Iitsu no fude, a signature that we also find on other prints clearly datable to the year 1830. All prints from later instalments have the signature ‘By the brush of Iitsu, formerly Hokusai,’ Saki no Hokusai Iitsu no fude.’ Yet, he had already, correctly, announced this change of name in the beginning of 1820, when he turned sixty, having lived a full cycle of sixty years, his so-called kanreki, Iitsu meaning ‘One Year Old Again.’ And throughout the 1820s, he used the name Iitsu in various combinations. But in these years, he primarily worked for a small audience of kyōka poets who maintained a kind of private press, issuing surimono prints and albums of poetry that were privately distributed among themselves. But now, working with the well-established publishing house of Eijudō, Nishimuraya Yohachi, they were addressing the population of the metropole that Edo was at the time, with its 1.3 million inhabitants. But then we would probably have to deduct some 600.000 plus samurai in the direct service of the shogun, plus some 70.000 priests and monks living in the temples. It may thus be simpler to work from what was considered a best-seller at the time. In the late eighteenth century, a best-selling novel was considered a book selling some twelve or thirteen thousand copies. And though this probably reflected sale figures for just a few months, it may be estimated that Hokusai’s print of the Kanagawa Wave also reached such figures over some period of time, and maybe even more, as long as there still was a demand.
One may wonder how people at the time enjoyed these prints. One can imagine that prints of actors in role would be viewed among friends when talking about the recent kabuki performances they had seen, discussing how Ebizō was great in this role at the Ichimura theatre, or Kikunojō recently performing in such and such a play at the Nakamura theatre. One can probably most easily get a view of how shunga prints were enjoyed among friends, especially after a few drinks. One could even try to imagine people discussing Hiroshige’s Fifty-three Stations Along the Tōkaidō Road as these came out in 1832 and 1833, possibly recalling the hilarious adventures of Kita and Yaji from Jippensha Ikku’s best-selling novel of the Tōkaidō hizakurige, of the early nineteenth century.
But how would Hokusai’s prints of Mount Fuji have been appreciated, and by whom. They were not simply pinned onto the wall, as the Impressionist artists did, and as we see them behind the portraits of some of the people they portrayed. We even know of a 1911 photograph of Claude Debussy standing in his study, Igor Stravinsky seated in a chair, with Hokusai’s Kanagawa Wave on the wall behind them. That was six years after Hokusai’s print inspired him to make his composition La Mer. Alas, we have, as far as I am aware, no contemporary sources. We just have further adverts from the publisher Nishimuraya for Hokusai’s series of Waterfalls in All Provinces in 1833, for his series of Bridges in All Provinces and the series of Small Flowers in 1834, and the series of illustrations to the One Hundred Classical Poems in 1835. That year, 1835, is also when the Fuji series is no longer advertised, as it was each year from 1831. So we may probably conclude that the series of Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji was a project that kept Hokusai busy from 1830 to 1834. By sheer coincidence, we know of an anonymous broadsheet with a mirrored image of the Kanagawa Wave, produced after a flood in the fourth month of 1834 in Suruga Province. This was caused by heavy rain in the evening of the seventh day, with people, animals and houses being swept away by the water coming down from the slopes of Mount Fuji. This is the only contemporary source demonstrating that Hokusai’s Wave was sufficiently well-known to serve as a model in this anonymous popular broadsheet. It will be obvious that such cheaply produced broadsheets hardly survive, but this one, good for us, is preserved in Tokyo University.
But we still have no idea how the people of Edo enjoyed these prints at the time. For example, if one wanted to see Mount Fuji as in Hokusai’s compositions of his Shower Below the Summit, or Fuji in Clear Weather, and Under the Wave Off Kanagawa, where would one go? Moreover, I am afraid that some clue, such as Fuji seen from Ejiri in Suruga Province, would also not really be helpful. And even more nearby, like viewing Mount Fuji from the Temple of the Five Hundred Rakan. Would that invite anyone to make an excursion to Honjo Fukagawa, indeed in Edo, but on the other bank of the Sumida River? Or would people just be happy to see Mount Fuji – as well as his prints of the waterfalls and the bridges in all provinces – just through Hokusai’s eyes? Did they maybe already realize that Hokusai’s world can only be found in Hokusai’s mind, as Ernest Fenollosa would write in 1893 in his Boston Museum of Fine Arts catalogue, Hokusai, and his school: ‘It is not Japan that he shows us, but a highly imaginative Hokusaiish world which he builds up for us. /…/ His manner of rendering trees, rocks, mountains, and other landscape details reminds of nothing ever noticed in the varied scenery of that country.’ And for sure, Fenollosa did travel the country, and I can only agree, I have never seen any bit of a Hokusai landscape in Japan – Hiroshige, yes.
However, judging from the centrefold that so many prints of the Fuji series feature, there must have been numerous people who collected maybe the complete series, or anyway a large number of the prints, and making these into a folding album that they would open at times. It might thus seem that his audience just reveled in Hokusai’s imagination, the world he created in his prints, and wanted to share with his audience. So, what may have been appealing to them in his print of Under the Wave Off Kanagawa? In Western newspapers, it was often, regrettably, associated with the March 11, 2011, tsunami that struck Japan’s eastern coast. But that could never have been the intention of Hokusai. His view is that we are surrounded by nature. And not coincidentally, in his series of Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (actually 46 prints in the end), we can only identify seven designs where someone seems or just might be paying attention to the mountain. Everybody is just aware that Mount Fuji is there, a volcanic mountain posing no threat whatsoever. Similarly, the rowers will make it to their destination, forget about that huge wave ‘off Kanagawa.’
On verso, this copy of the print has some various notes, written in pencil in different hands, such as ‘36 vues Hok,’ obviously referring to the series title of Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji by Hokusai, and ‘Kanagawa,’ clearly identifying the prints as Under the Wave Off Kanagawa. Moreover, several personal names are listed, indicating a most interesting and detailed pedigree of the print. The earliest, it seems, heading a list of five names, ‘V.d. Broeck 90,’ suggests that some Belgian collector by the name of Van den Broeck acquired the print in 1890. In the centre is the name ‘Michotte’ with a note ‘1894,’ suggesting that Edmond Michotte (1831-1914), a musical composer living in Brussels, who was also a close friend of the art dealer Siegfried Bing (1838-1905), acquired the print from Van den Broeck in 1894. As for their connection, Mr. Van den Broeck is mentioned by Edmond Michotte in a letter to Hayashi Tadamasa. In 1905, Michotte appears to have sold part of his collection, still over 4,300 prints, to the Musées royaux d’Art et d’Histoire, Bruxelles. Returning to the list of five names, the next one reads ‘Tasset,’ referring to Jacques Tasset (1868-1945), a scholar in Asian studies, known for articles on both Siegfried Bing and Roger Marx. Moreover, he was part of the circles of collectors, dealers, and scholars of Japanese art of the time. Then follows the name of ‘Wansart,’ who would be Adolphe Wansart (1873-1954), a Belgian painter and sculptor who made his debut in 1893. He is known to have sold a collection of Japanese prints in December 1926, including three from the Thirty-six Views, but not the Kanagawa Wave. Staying in the same circles, the name of ‘Baltus’ would be Georges-Marie Baltus (1874-1967), a Belgian painter and graphic artist. He authored an introduction to an exhibition of Aquarelles japonaises du Dix-neuvième Siècle at the Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, in 1957. It is most likely that it was on this occasion that Baltus and Tikotin met, the last one in the list. Tiko, as the well-known Dutch-German Japanese art dealer Felix Tikotin (1893-1986) was known, was then established at Wassenaar, but also quite active in Belgium and France. It was he who put his seal ‘Tikochin’ ティコチン in the bottom right corner on verso.
More recently, a private French collector acquired the print from a Swiss private collection, at a 2007 Christie’s auction in London, and it has been in his hands until now.
Dr. Matthi Forrer
Senior Researcher Japan Collections, National Museum of Ethnology, now Wereldmuseum, Leiden
Even now, after almost two centuries, it seems highly unlikely that there will ever be a more iconic artwork, globally, than Hokusai’s ‘Kanagawa Wave.’ Popularly known as ‘The Great Wave,’ it is officially titled ‘Under the Wave Off Kanagawa.’ This composition of 1830 by Katsushika Hokusai, 1760-1849, keeps fascinating the world. But what exactly is it that fascinates us? Is it the movement of the rising wave, or the struggle of the rowers in the three boats, or is it the image rhyme, the visual repetition of Mount Fuji in the small wave in the left foreground. Or the contradiction that a wave can make Mount Fuji with its 3776 meters high look like a distant dwarf? Whatever it may be, in contemporary imagery, the image of the giant wave has come to stand for power, speed, and progress, and is used in advertisements for cars, for fitness training, for saunas, and even, turned into a wave of rubbish, in the war against environmental pollution.
Quite understandably, nothing like that was on Hokusai’s mind when he started this design to be part of his unheard-of novel concept of an ōban size series of Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, Fugaku sanjūrokkei, to be published by Nishimuraya Yohachi. Of course, there had been a group of Western style prints by Hokusai’s pupil Hokujū, in the later 1800s, and a somewhat similar group by Ryūryūkyo Shinsai, all featuring a margin with ‘Dutch’ lettering, in the early 1820s. But a publisher agreeing to publish this Hokusai series of Mount Fuji, to be comprised of thirty-six designs, as the series title specifies, was unprecedented. But when the first instalment of ten prints had been issued, this must have been such an unexpected and direct success, that both Hokusai and his publisher Nishimuraya Yohachi dared make an announcement in the first month of 1831, that the series might well exceed thirty-six designs, and be comprised of ‘a hundred.’
In such an optimistic spirit, it should not surprise us that the three acknowledged absolute masterpieces were also part of this first group: Shower Below the Summit, Fuji in Clear Weather, and Under the Wave Off Kanagawa. All prints in this first instalment bear the signature ‘By the brush of Hokusai, changing his name to Iitsu,’ Hokusai aratame Iitsu no fude, a signature that we also find on other prints clearly datable to the year 1830. All prints from later instalments have the signature ‘By the brush of Iitsu, formerly Hokusai,’ Saki no Hokusai Iitsu no fude.’ Yet, he had already, correctly, announced this change of name in the beginning of 1820, when he turned sixty, having lived a full cycle of sixty years, his so-called kanreki, Iitsu meaning ‘One Year Old Again.’ And throughout the 1820s, he used the name Iitsu in various combinations. But in these years, he primarily worked for a small audience of kyōka poets who maintained a kind of private press, issuing surimono prints and albums of poetry that were privately distributed among themselves. But now, working with the well-established publishing house of Eijudō, Nishimuraya Yohachi, they were addressing the population of the metropole that Edo was at the time, with its 1.3 million inhabitants. But then we would probably have to deduct some 600.000 plus samurai in the direct service of the shogun, plus some 70.000 priests and monks living in the temples. It may thus be simpler to work from what was considered a best-seller at the time. In the late eighteenth century, a best-selling novel was considered a book selling some twelve or thirteen thousand copies. And though this probably reflected sale figures for just a few months, it may be estimated that Hokusai’s print of the Kanagawa Wave also reached such figures over some period of time, and maybe even more, as long as there still was a demand.
One may wonder how people at the time enjoyed these prints. One can imagine that prints of actors in role would be viewed among friends when talking about the recent kabuki performances they had seen, discussing how Ebizō was great in this role at the Ichimura theatre, or Kikunojō recently performing in such and such a play at the Nakamura theatre. One can probably most easily get a view of how shunga prints were enjoyed among friends, especially after a few drinks. One could even try to imagine people discussing Hiroshige’s Fifty-three Stations Along the Tōkaidō Road as these came out in 1832 and 1833, possibly recalling the hilarious adventures of Kita and Yaji from Jippensha Ikku’s best-selling novel of the Tōkaidō hizakurige, of the early nineteenth century.
But how would Hokusai’s prints of Mount Fuji have been appreciated, and by whom. They were not simply pinned onto the wall, as the Impressionist artists did, and as we see them behind the portraits of some of the people they portrayed. We even know of a 1911 photograph of Claude Debussy standing in his study, Igor Stravinsky seated in a chair, with Hokusai’s Kanagawa Wave on the wall behind them. That was six years after Hokusai’s print inspired him to make his composition La Mer. Alas, we have, as far as I am aware, no contemporary sources. We just have further adverts from the publisher Nishimuraya for Hokusai’s series of Waterfalls in All Provinces in 1833, for his series of Bridges in All Provinces and the series of Small Flowers in 1834, and the series of illustrations to the One Hundred Classical Poems in 1835. That year, 1835, is also when the Fuji series is no longer advertised, as it was each year from 1831. So we may probably conclude that the series of Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji was a project that kept Hokusai busy from 1830 to 1834. By sheer coincidence, we know of an anonymous broadsheet with a mirrored image of the Kanagawa Wave, produced after a flood in the fourth month of 1834 in Suruga Province. This was caused by heavy rain in the evening of the seventh day, with people, animals and houses being swept away by the water coming down from the slopes of Mount Fuji. This is the only contemporary source demonstrating that Hokusai’s Wave was sufficiently well-known to serve as a model in this anonymous popular broadsheet. It will be obvious that such cheaply produced broadsheets hardly survive, but this one, good for us, is preserved in Tokyo University.
But we still have no idea how the people of Edo enjoyed these prints at the time. For example, if one wanted to see Mount Fuji as in Hokusai’s compositions of his Shower Below the Summit, or Fuji in Clear Weather, and Under the Wave Off Kanagawa, where would one go? Moreover, I am afraid that some clue, such as Fuji seen from Ejiri in Suruga Province, would also not really be helpful. And even more nearby, like viewing Mount Fuji from the Temple of the Five Hundred Rakan. Would that invite anyone to make an excursion to Honjo Fukagawa, indeed in Edo, but on the other bank of the Sumida River? Or would people just be happy to see Mount Fuji – as well as his prints of the waterfalls and the bridges in all provinces – just through Hokusai’s eyes? Did they maybe already realize that Hokusai’s world can only be found in Hokusai’s mind, as Ernest Fenollosa would write in 1893 in his Boston Museum of Fine Arts catalogue, Hokusai, and his school: ‘It is not Japan that he shows us, but a highly imaginative Hokusaiish world which he builds up for us. /…/ His manner of rendering trees, rocks, mountains, and other landscape details reminds of nothing ever noticed in the varied scenery of that country.’ And for sure, Fenollosa did travel the country, and I can only agree, I have never seen any bit of a Hokusai landscape in Japan – Hiroshige, yes.
However, judging from the centrefold that so many prints of the Fuji series feature, there must have been numerous people who collected maybe the complete series, or anyway a large number of the prints, and making these into a folding album that they would open at times. It might thus seem that his audience just reveled in Hokusai’s imagination, the world he created in his prints, and wanted to share with his audience. So, what may have been appealing to them in his print of Under the Wave Off Kanagawa? In Western newspapers, it was often, regrettably, associated with the March 11, 2011, tsunami that struck Japan’s eastern coast. But that could never have been the intention of Hokusai. His view is that we are surrounded by nature. And not coincidentally, in his series of Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (actually 46 prints in the end), we can only identify seven designs where someone seems or just might be paying attention to the mountain. Everybody is just aware that Mount Fuji is there, a volcanic mountain posing no threat whatsoever. Similarly, the rowers will make it to their destination, forget about that huge wave ‘off Kanagawa.’
On verso, this copy of the print has some various notes, written in pencil in different hands, such as ‘36 vues Hok,’ obviously referring to the series title of Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji by Hokusai, and ‘Kanagawa,’ clearly identifying the prints as Under the Wave Off Kanagawa. Moreover, several personal names are listed, indicating a most interesting and detailed pedigree of the print. The earliest, it seems, heading a list of five names, ‘V.d. Broeck 90,’ suggests that some Belgian collector by the name of Van den Broeck acquired the print in 1890. In the centre is the name ‘Michotte’ with a note ‘1894,’ suggesting that Edmond Michotte (1831-1914), a musical composer living in Brussels, who was also a close friend of the art dealer Siegfried Bing (1838-1905), acquired the print from Van den Broeck in 1894. As for their connection, Mr. Van den Broeck is mentioned by Edmond Michotte in a letter to Hayashi Tadamasa. In 1905, Michotte appears to have sold part of his collection, still over 4,300 prints, to the Musées royaux d’Art et d’Histoire, Bruxelles. Returning to the list of five names, the next one reads ‘Tasset,’ referring to Jacques Tasset (1868-1945), a scholar in Asian studies, known for articles on both Siegfried Bing and Roger Marx. Moreover, he was part of the circles of collectors, dealers, and scholars of Japanese art of the time. Then follows the name of ‘Wansart,’ who would be Adolphe Wansart (1873-1954), a Belgian painter and sculptor who made his debut in 1893. He is known to have sold a collection of Japanese prints in December 1926, including three from the Thirty-six Views, but not the Kanagawa Wave. Staying in the same circles, the name of ‘Baltus’ would be Georges-Marie Baltus (1874-1967), a Belgian painter and graphic artist. He authored an introduction to an exhibition of Aquarelles japonaises du Dix-neuvième Siècle at the Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, in 1957. It is most likely that it was on this occasion that Baltus and Tikotin met, the last one in the list. Tiko, as the well-known Dutch-German Japanese art dealer Felix Tikotin (1893-1986) was known, was then established at Wassenaar, but also quite active in Belgium and France. It was he who put his seal ‘Tikochin’ ティコチン in the bottom right corner on verso.
More recently, a private French collector acquired the print from a Swiss private collection, at a 2007 Christie’s auction in London, and it has been in his hands until now.
Dr. Matthi Forrer
Senior Researcher Japan Collections, National Museum of Ethnology, now Wereldmuseum, Leiden