illustrated book;
print
- Museum number
- 1939,0524,0.26
- Title
- Object: Wakan ehon sakigake 和漢絵本魁 (Picture Book of the Warrior Vanguard in Japan and China)
- Description
-
Illustrated book (five volumes in one). Illustrated deeds of famous warriors. Woodblock-printed.
- Production date
- 1836
- Dimensions
-
Height: 22.60 centimetres (covers)
-
Width: 16 centimetres (covers)
- Curator's comments
- Clark 2017
In addition to brush drawing manuals of genre and nature subjects, such Hokusai’s Sketches (Hokusai manga; cats 164, 165), Hokusai also produced four manuals depicting military heroes of ancient Japan and China. The volumes are filled with dynamic, double-page tableaus of warriors engaged in deeds of valour. Hokusai presented most of the narratives in horizontal format, but here in novel vertical format he depicted priest Mongaku (1139–1203), formerly the warrior Endō Moritō, who mistakenly killed a married woman he loved, and afterwards endured penance beneath the icy waters of Nachi waterfall. Mongaku stands resolutely at the centre of the fall, his fingers locked in the type of ritual gesture (mudra) associated with Esoteric Buddhist practice. This is the second of a two-part sequence: the previous illustration shows the Buddhist deities who watched over Mongaku during the ritual. Hokusai noted that he drew these figures not in the manner of a Buddhist painting but in proportion with the human physique.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
Exhibited:
2017 25 May - 13 Aug, London, BM, G35, Hokusai: Beyond the Great Wave
2017 6 Oct - 19 Nov, Osaka, Abeno Harukas Art Museum
2022 16 Apr-12 Jun, Tokyo, Suntory Museum of Art, Hokusai from the British Museum
2023–2024 Oct-Jan, Santa Ana, CA, USA, Bowers Museum, Hokusai: Beyond the Great Wave
- Acquisition date
- 1939
- Department
- Asia
- Registration number
- 1939,0524,0.26
- Additional IDs
-
Japanese Illustrated Book number: JIB.224