Hokusai. Edmond de Goncourt

dressed in checked fabrics, as was the fashion that year.

      – A noble lady, accompanied by a servant girl, passes before a gate where concert programs are posted.

      1818:

      – Two plates in a square format that will become the typical form for surimonos.

      1819:

      – Daïkoku walking on the banks of a river populated with fantastic lizards.

      The year 1820 sees the reappearance of many surimonos, whose production has become quite rare in the preceding years. Curiously, the influences of Gakutei and Hokkei, two excellent students of Hokusai, can be felt in these works.

      – A series of party floats, that one pulled through the streets.

      – A series of five women poets.

      – A series entitled ‘Comparison of the Strength of the Heroes of China and of Japan’.

      Among the single plates, one finds a young girl printing a proof near a woodcutter who is cutting a plate, a man holding to him, posed on a go table, an elegant Japanese doll with marvellous colours coming out of a background of gold, harmoniously ‘green-grey’. One also sees many still lifes, such as a black lacquer bowl and a box of chopsticks, a large plate grouping a cask of sake, a spray of iris and chrysanthemums, and a basket of oranges. This surimono was executed for a banquet given in honour of an academic.

      Parody of a Courtesan in a Boat, c. 1804–1805.

      Black and coloured ink and gofun on paper, 34.8 × 56.4 cm.

      Japanese Ukiyo-e Museum, Matsumoto.

      Two Women and a Child on the Shore, c. 1804.

      Nishiki-e, 18.9 × 51.6 cm.

      Museo d’Arte Orientale Edoardo Chiossone, Genoa.

      1821:

      – A series entitled ‘The Brothers of the Warrior Subjects of China and Japan’. It evokes the resemblances between the heroic acts of the two countries.

      – A large series on trades, of an unknown number.

      – A series on trades at the seashore.

      – Still lifes, including a series of scallops.

      – An isolated page represents a large white snake, this snake is a good luck charm that is said to announce a happy event for he who has the good fortune to see it.

      1822:

      – One print is curious. It represents two enormous pearls emitting rays of some kind. They are being carried to the queen Jingo by the goddess of the ocean, who has come from her dragon palace. They are said to have the power to lower the tides, which allowed the goddess to seize Korea.

      – A series of four plates entitled ‘Four Natures’: it contains a drawing of a crow of great character.

      – As this year was the year of the horse in the Japanese calendar, this incited Hokusai to make one of his most perfect series of horses. This series in honour of the horse associated a wide range of trinkets, such as a bit or a saddle remind us of the horse; Hokusai, in this spirit went so far as to represent the street of the stirrups, where the images were sold and the stable wharf, which except for the name, has nothing to do with horses at all!

      Gods and Poets, c. 1804.

      Nishiki-e, 18.4 × 51.1 cm.

      Museo d’Arte Orientale Edoardo Chiossone, Genoa.

      1823:

      – A series of actors, in five plates, actors in the style of Toyokuni, and that Hokusai signed: “I-itsu, the old man of Katsushika being a monkey and imitating others.”

      1825:

      – Two cranes at the seashore.

      1826:

      – Princess Tamamo-No-Mae, who is a nine tailed fox metamorphosed into a woman, whose nine tails are represented by the embossing of the print in the train of her robe.

      1829:

      – A woman riding a bull.

      1835:

      A fisherman at the seashore, a pipe in his mouth, a line between his legs crossed one over the other. One might be tempted to see, in this old bald man with a bony nose, a jeering mouth, and the physiognomy of an ironic kalmouck, a portrait of Hokusai. Moreover, the legend behind this plate is as follows, “what a novel thing to be able to grow a young bride (the name of a Japanese species of lettuce) in the sand at the beach!” This colour print was made for New Year’s Day of the year following the one in which Hokusai was able to arrange a marriage for his grandson, and with this double entendre he was able to express his joy at the entrance into the house of his grandson’s young bride.

      2. Yellow Books

      Hokusai’s compositions from 1780–90, like the first compositions by Utamaro, were engraved in little books, those popular books printed in black and white with a yellow cover from which they take their name: kibyoshi. They are small volumes 17 cm tall by 12.5 cm wide, with text and drawings. Each volume is typically composed of five sheets.

      The first yellow book that he illustrated, in 1781, at the age of twenty-one, was a small novel in three volumes, entitled: Arigataï tsuno itiji, “With a Courteous Word, Anything is Permitted”, a novel of which no copies remain and whose text was first attributed, at the time it was published, to Kitao Masanobu, and then later to the famous novelist Kioden. However, the text and drawings are by Hokusai, who had published this pamphlet under the pseudonym of Korewasaï, which means, “Is that the one?”, the refrain of a little song at that time.

      The following year, in 1782, Hokusai published a yellow book, Kamakura Tsushinden, “The Warriors of Kamakura”, two fascicules for which he did the text and the drawings and that he presented to the public under the name of Guiobutsu for the text, and Shunro for the drawings. The difficulty of translating Japanese thoughts into western languages has sometimes created differences in translations of the titles of books and novels, improvised through tête-à-tête work and translations long-thought out through solitary work.