KATSUSHIKA HOKUSAI (1760-1849)

Set against a pale blue background, the fully bloomed and budding poppies bend in wind towards the right. The appreciateable wood grain of the background in this early impression adds pleasant effect of water surface with ripples. Hokusai purposely employed coarse and blurry outlines to convey the dynamic feeling of flowers swinging in the strong wind. This unconventional composition, similar to the famous Great Wave, creates a fascinating visual challenge for Edo Period Japanese audiences who were accustomed to read pictures from the right to left. Some scholars regard this design as the best composition in the series (Sarah Thompsen, Hokusai. Boston: MFA Publications, 2015. Pp 105).
Hokusai’s production of this Large Flowers series elevated bird-and-flower prints from an overlooked genre to a popular one. By depicting the flowers close-up, Hokusai captured the characters of each flowers in this series as if they were 18th century European figure portraits. The delicate treatment of nature and the simple but striking color combination influenced heavily on 19th century European art, especially the movement of Art Nouveau.