Katsushika Hokusai is one of my favorite artists and not just for his technical skills or unusual life story (born the son of a concubine, changed his name thirty times... y’know... that old chestnut?) What I really admire about him is the impact he had on both western and eastern art forms.

Hokusai lived in Japan during the Edo period and specialized in traditional paintings and woodblock prints. He was a notable influence on Van Gogh and Monet but, more surprisingly, he helped invent something far more contemporary: Manga.

If you live with teenagers, there’s zero chance you haven’t come across the cultural phenomenon that is Japanese comic books. Over the last decade, I’ve witnessed my house slowly turn into a shrine to comics with titles like Fullmetal Alchemist, Battle Angel Alita and Chainsaw Man. But this turns out to be an area where my kids’ artistic interests overlap with mine (much to their horror, I’m sure).

Hokusai trained as an artist while also working in a library, so it’s no surprise he picked up an affinity and talent for matching images to text. His first paid job as an artist was illustrating other people’s books and before long he gained renown for his collaborations with popular fantasy novelist Takizawa Bakin.

When the two eventually parted ways following an argument, Hokusai decided to write his own books, and he wanted to do things very differently. Sick of playing second fiddle to whichever author he was illustrating, Hokusai’s plan was to flip the relationship between words and pictures.

Take a look at this page from one of Bakin’s novels Strange Tales of the Bow Moon (1807). Hokusai’s illustration serves a very simple function here: to support the text. It’s a lively and detailed addition for sure, but it’s very much Bakin’s book which Hokusai is helping dress up.

In 1814 Hokusai started a collection (14 volumes) known as Hokusai Manga originally comprised largely of pictures. As the collection grew you can really see the style evolve to embody the characteristics we often see associated today in Manga as demonstrated in this image taken from Vol 10.

Now consider this page from Hokusai’s own work One Hundred Ghost Stories (1830). Immediately you can see the shift in style and emphasis. Because Hokusai was an artist first and a writer second, the drawings in his books were no longer decorative features to break up or support the words; they were suddenly the main attraction themselves, with dialogue and descriptions added to support them.

*One Hundred Ghost Stories* (1830) - Hokusai

Along with other artists like Aikawa Minwa and Santo Kyoden, Hokusai approached his books with an artist’s eye and devised a form of storytelling where pictures and text were carefully integrated. Whereas in his collaborations with Bakin, you could remove Hokusai’s pictures and the novel would still make sense, Hokusai’s solo work was the reverse - pictures were center stage and text was an afterthought. If that’s not a progenitor to comic books, I don’t know what is!

It’s not just the style which Hokusai pioneered either, he also introduced a lot of the thematic elements you still find in Manga today. His work featured biting social satire, passionate romantic storylines, supernatural elements and intense sexuality characterized by exaggerated female beauty and some very taboo activities. You can...uh... Google that yourself.

Hokusai and his contemporaries put artists on an equal footing with authors and in doing so, birthed a new form of storytelling altogether. While it’s absolutely important to praise him for his use of perspective and attention to refined detail, you might also want to thank him for your favorite Marvel movies, Halloween costumes and probably your kid’s phone background.

And yes, I’m fully aware I’m being ‘that mom’ right now - taking something cool my kids love and explaining how it has roots in traditional, old-fashioned stuff I love. Sorry about that.

Now...what exactly is Chainsaw Guy?

Katsushika Hokusai

Keith haring