Staff-Waving Dance
- Date:
- c. 1790
- Medium:
- Woodblock print (nishiki-e), ink and color on paper
- Format:
- Oban
- Dimensions:
- 21.1 × 15.3 cm
- Source:
- Minneapolis Institute of Art
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 performer executes a staff-waving dance (bo-furi) in full motion, the long staff blurred with movement in this [nishiki-e](/glossary/nishiki-e) brocade print from around 1790. The bo-furi dance was performed by street entertainers and theatrical troupes as a crowd-pleasing acrobatic display, and Hokusai captures the kinetic energy of the spinning staff with a compositional confidence that anticipates the dynamic figure studies of his later Manga sketchbooks.
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
Staff-Waving Dance was created by Katsushika Hokusai (葛飾北斎) in c. 1790.
Staff-Waving Dance depicts music.
Staff-Waving Dance measures 21.1 × 15.3 cm (Oban format).
