Goldfish farm
- Date:
- n.d.
- Medium:
- Color woodblock print; nagaban, surimono
- Format:
- Nagaban
- Source:
- Art Institute of Chicago
Hokusai's genre scenes, bijin-ga (beautiful women), and miscellaneous subjects represent the breadth of his career across more than seven decades. The market for non-landscape Hokusai prints has strengthened as collectors seek beyond the most famous designs.
A nagaban [surimono](/glossary/surimono) depicts the ponds and tanks of a goldfish farm, where the ornamental fish — breeding and display of which was a fashionable Edo hobby — drift in their water enclosures. Hokusai's treatment likely plays on the formal elegance of goldfish as subjects, their curving, lacquered bodies offering both visual delight and symbolic associations with good fortune and domesticated beauty.
1821
Color woodblock print with metallic pigments; surimono shikishiban
1822
Color woodblock print; shikishiban, surimono
1822
Color woodblock print; shikishiban, surimono
c. 1832
Color woodblock print; oban
Goldfish farm was created by Katsushika Hokusai (葛飾北斎) in n.d..
Goldfish farm depicts fish and animals.
