Amazing Arts of Japan

More than 150 years after his death, Katsushika Hokusai remains one of Japan's most well-known artists around the world. His most popular work, 36 Views of Mount Fuji, shows the iconic mountain from multiple perspectives. Hokusai created the illustrations when he was in his seventies.
His late blooming was spectacular – it was only in his 70s that he made his most celebrated print series, 36 Views of Mount Fuji, including the famous Great Wave, an image that subsequently swept over the world. "Until the age of 70," he once wrote "nothing that I drew was worthy of notice." The 46 prints of the Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji ensured his fame. In Buddhist and Daoist tradition, Hokusai's obsession with Mount Fuji was part of his yearning after artistic immortality.
This program delves into the mysteries surrounding the woodblock prints. What drove the artist to begin them late in life? And what was it about the series that dazzled the people of his era? The answers reveal truths about the artist, his work, and his times.

by Christopher Harding (Author)
"Lucid and lyrical…a vivid history of Japan's turbocharged (and painful) modernization." —The Daily Telegraph