Hokusai's Brush

Book excerpt: Experience the breathtaking masterworks of one of the most influential artists in Japan's history. Hokusai's Brush is a companion to the Freer Gallery of Art's yearlong exhibition that celebrates the artist's fruitful career. The Freer, home to the world's largest collection of paintings by Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai, has put on view for the first time in a decade his incredible and rarely seen sketches, drawings, and paintings. Together with essays that explore his life and career, Hokusai's Brush offers an in-depth breakdown of each painting, providing amazing commentary that highlight Hokusai's mastery and detail. While best known for his woodblock print series "Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji" and particularly the widely recognizable "The Great Wave off Kanagawa," Hokusai is said to have produced 30,000 pieces of art. He lived to ninety years old, and his last words were reportedly to say that if heaven were to grant him another five or ten years, then he could become a true painter. Every stunning page of Hokusai's Brush is a testament to the humility of that statement, emphasizing his artistry and skill, the likes of which shaped the Impressionist movement by inspiring artists such as Monet, Degas, and van Gogh.