What Does Hokusai Mean?
Hokusai is the name of a Japanese artist or a painter. His work was influenced by the impressionists. He was an artist of the Edo period. His full name was Katsushika Hokusai but was more popularly known as Hokusai. Apart from a painter he was also a printmaker and ukiyo-e maker. Ukiyo-e is a genre of Japanese woodblock prints and paintings produced between 17th and the 20th centuries. It is translated as “pictures of the floating world”. He was born in Edo which was the former name of present day’s Tokyo. His best known work was a woodblock print series named Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji. This work was a result of the domestic travel boom and a personal obsession with Mount Fuji. This work helped Hokusai to gain recognition and fame not only in his country but in the whole world. It is highly acclaimed and popular internationally. Thus Hokusai is one of the most outstanding personalities of Japanese woodblock printing known as Ukiyo-e.
