Synopsis
A documentary about the life and art of wood-block artist Katsushika Hokusai.
1953 Directed by Hiroshi Teshigahara
A documentary about the life and art of wood-block artist Katsushika Hokusai.
Yet he painted all day until his eyes became blurry.
A simple, reflective tribute to the artist Hokusai, Hiroshi Teshigahara was already understanding the importance of the dedication to art, and more importantly, the inspiration one can achieve from admiring another of their craft.
Hokusai’s story is brief in this documentary but we get the highlights of his life and his core philosophies; how he made art for the impoverished and mocked the samurais (a lot of cultural commentary). He even believed that once one achieved a particular numerical age (100) only then could one become a true artist. Which leaves something to be said or more-so poetically observed as we learn Hokusai never reached this age he speaks of. …
☆"Excessive pleasure leads to pain, and enjoyment always follows a time of want."☆
After spending my Sunday with director Hiroshi Teshigahara, capped by his masterpiece Woman in the Dunes, tonight I'm going to spend time with four of his short films. These are all found on the Criterion Collection release of the aforementioned movie.
Short reviews for short films, as these are all around a half hour or less. Here we go.
Teshigahara's first short film was from 1953, Hokusai, and of the four I'm watching I was easily most anticipating this one, as it covers the life and career of Japanese block-print artist Katsushika Hokusai, art legend and master of ukiyo-e style. Famous for the vast array of styles…
i've been missing a sense of serenity in my life and it lies within the sea, so i brought the sea, his sea, his waves, his sense of serenity and hanged it in my room, right in front of my bed, now i wake up drowned and belonged by his great wave of emotions, a man i knew through a painting.
A fascinating prelude to Teshighara's future output. Hokusai, a 23-minute short about the impoverished block-artist, is notably successful in two ways: a) by giving a surprisingly thorough depiction of the splendid Hokusai's life, trials and tribulations in a brief amount of time (his death poem is particularly moving; I wish he'd been able to realize his goal of reaching the age of 100, where, according to him, he'd finally be able to achieve perfection); and b) by skewering the samurai class via Hokusai's work, a class that Teshighara would mostly eschew in his features in favor of peasants (and merchants). Perhaps most startling is how stylistically similar much of Hokusai's work—the sparseness, the lone hut in a vast space—is to Teshigahara's own aesthetic in, say, Woman in the Dunes or Pitfall. One of the more prescient early shorts by a great director that I can recall.
" at 70, one finally begins to understand how plants and trees grow, as well as the structure of birds, animals and fish. at 90, one's artistry deepens to the essence of things. at 100, one may achieve a divine state in art. at 110, every dot and every stroke will be as though alive. "
- Hokusai
"My soul now departs to its leisure and rest - the hot summer fields."
A great reminder of how spiritually rejuvenating it is to look at art, scrutinize the tiny details, contemplate its meaning and appreciate that this was something a human being made with their own hands, and in doing so made life so much richer for all of us.
Hiroshi Teshigahara ranked (work-in-progress)
The most interesting thing about this short film is Teshigahara's subtle connection between the peasant uprising (spurned on by famines, natural disasters, and authoritarian rule) and the "wave" themed block prints of the famed "Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji" series. He seems to suggest that the waves are a symbol of the struggle the peasant classes (depicted therein on fishing boats) have with nature, but also with Shogunate rule. It's a fascinating perspective, and deepens my understanding of Teshigahara's message in WOMAN IN THE DUNES. Good stuff (and holy cow is Hokusai's art amazing.)
Making a fool of everyone who reads. An artist could never be me.
Dedication to nothing but my own despair. Perhaps it's my misery that drives me to write. Everything else in my life is irrelevant. This is all that will truly be left of me before this site decays. Before everything I was is erased.