Hokusai's Album of Pictures from Nature (Hokusai shashin gafu)
- Date:
- Late Edo period, preface dated 1814
- Medium:
- Accordion-fold ukiyo-e woodblock-printed book; ink and light color on paper
- Source:
- Harvard Art Museums
Hokusai's Album of Pictures from Nature (Hokusai shashin gafu), published in 1814, is one of Katsushika Hokusai's important early instructional and aesthetic publications and appears in the same year as the first volume of the Hokusai Manga. The album presents a series of carefully composed studies of birds, animals, plants, figures and landscapes intended to demonstrate the artist's principle of drawing directly from nature, an idea captured in the term shashin within the title. As a publication it belongs to the broader field of Edo ukiyo-e woodblock printing, drawing on the same carvers, printers and publishers who produced single-sheet prints. The album was issued in a more refined form than the densely populated pages of the Manga, with one or two motifs per page allowed to breathe against the white of the paper. The Harvard Art Museums preserve a copy of the album, and their wider holdings of Hokusai illustrated books support detailed comparative study. As a ukiyo-e print album, the work documents the moment at which Hokusai began to consolidate his pedagogical identity as a master draughtsman addressing himself to a national audience of students and amateur painters. The Hokusai shashin gafu is therefore an important document for understanding both his technical achievements and his self-presentation as a teacher in the second decade of the nineteenth century.
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
Wakasa Kugushiko
1920
Color woodblock print; oban
Woodblock print
1934
Color woodblock print; oban
n.d.
Woodblock print; ishizuri-e, section of harimaze sheet
Curated cross-cuts that include this print.
Hokusai's Album of Pictures from Nature (Hokusai shashin gafu) was created by Katsushika Hokusai (葛飾北斎) in Late Edo period, preface dated 1814.
Hokusai's Album of Pictures from Nature (Hokusai shashin gafu) depicts landscapes.