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HokusaiHokusai became one of the great masters of the woodcut. His works range from portraits of popular actors and courtesans to landscapes and seascapes, including his celebrated "Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji," and from cleverly observed scenes of everyday life to the erotic prints known as shunga. This "brush gone wild," as he called himself, was rediscovered by the Impressionists and aesthetes at the end of the nineteenth century. While his prints had a huge influence on the course of Western art, it is equally true that he himself was influenced by European painting, embracing techniques such as perspective and adapting them to suit Japanese tastes. He remains one of the greatest figures of world art.
HokusaiHokusai became one of the great masters of the woodcut. His works range from portraits of popular actors and courtesans to landscapes and seascapes, including his celebrated "Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji," and from cleverly observed scenes of everyday life to the erotic prints known as shunga. This "brush gone wild," as he called himself, was rediscovered by the Impressionists and aesthetes at the end of the nineteenth century. While his prints had a huge influence on the course of Western art, it is equally true that he himself was influenced by European painting, embracing techniques such as perspective and adapting them to suit Japanese tastes. He remains one of the greatest figures of world art.