Hokusai exhibited at the Nantes History Museum

The best known of Japanese painters. Meanwhile, Hokusai, is in the spotlight all summer at the Nantes History Museum with a large exhibition that brings together famous and discovered works. Consequently,

If the name of Hokusai is little known to the general public. However, its famous print The Great Wave has become an icon of world art. Similarly, This work is, moreover, presented in the exhibition “Hokusai” to discover at the Nantes History Museum until September 7. In addition, “”It is a great work in its composition. Consequently, an image that speaks to everyone, it is an emoji and even a logo of certain brands, it is omnipresent. However, The public comes here to look at this original which has built a whole sum of declination“says Bertrand Guillet. director of the Nantes History Museum. “The wave is a universal work, it is the finger of Michelangelo, La Joconde du Louvre”he concludes.

This wave. which has become a real icon, was declined by Hokusai in two very rare paintings, exposed for the first time outside Japan. These two works formerly decorated procession tanks in the city of an obsession. where the artist spent the end of hokusai exhibited nantes history museum his life, and reveal the immense talent of the painter.

“Unlike the great wave of Kanagawa where we see this winding of the wave. these ships which will be overwhelmed by the wave, and in the distance Mount Fuji, here we have a kind of big wave that turns on itself. We no longer see anything, there are no landscapes or human scenes, hokusai exhibited nantes history museum describes the director of the Nantes museum. The vital energy of the water is represented. These works were carried out about fifteen years after the Great Wave. finally testify to the culmination of his research“.

The exhibition presents 161 Works all from the Hokusai-Kan d’Aboe museum, the first museum in Japan dedicated to the artist. If Mount Fuji was the predilection subject of Hokusai. in particular with its series of prints Thirty-six views of Mount Fujihe also painted many female beauties, whether they were dancers or courtesans, water in all its forms : rain, waterfall or rivers.

Nature is also omnipresent in the painter’s work with representations of animals. flowers like these two paintings on chrysanthemum silk. Bertrand Guillet does not spare his praise when he evokes the work : “C‘is a masterpiece of the museum. it is a pair of chrysanthemums made at the age of hokusai exhibited nantes history museum 85 years. We see both all its dexterity from the point of view of drawing but its immense talent of color. This ability to capture nature, we see it in the sweetness of the petals. It is really a magnificent work from the point of view of the art of nature.“

In 70 years of activity. Hokusai has created more than 3 000 engravings, thousands of drawings, 2 000 printed books and some 450 Paintings.