Customer Reviews

Hokusai: One-Hundred Poets

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I recommend this gorgeous book to any fan of Japanese prints in general, or Hokusai in particular. This series of prints, never completed, combines a thousand years of Japanese poetry and culture with Hokusai's rich imagination, giving more meaning to the poems and imagery than either could have by themselves.

After a brief and informative introduction, each two-page spread presents one of the images. It appears on the right-hand side, at roughly the original size (oban, aboutu 10"x15"). Text appears on the left-hand page: the name of the poet, a five-line poem in rigidly defined form, biographical information about the poet, commentary on the poem, and analysis of Hokusai's rendering. Although helpful and informative, the writing never falls into dry pendatry or restatement of the obvious. In books like these, I very often skim the text; here, I take the time to read Morse's comments. They really add to my understanding of the prints and their cultural context.

This series holds special interest because it was never completed. Only twenty seven of the hundred are known to have been printed in color, and they all appear here. Only the key (black ink) block appears for another, over fifty appear as full-sized drawings but were never cut, two drawings are now lost but appear as photos taken when they were still extant, and four appear as prints from blocks cut by a twentieth-century artist working from Hokusai's original drawings. It is maddening to know that Morse has seen photos of two more, held by a collector who has not granted permission to reproduce them. In a few cases, the print and preparatory drawing have both been presented; the drawing appears in reduced form with the text, opposite the print.

As much as I love Western printmaking, it rarely equals the complexity or subtlety of Japanese woodcuts. Among Japanese printmakers, Hokusai holds a position as an undisputed master. This collection does a lot to cement that reputation for the Western reader.

-- wiredweird

I read this on my bus commutes... and quickly found it such a treat that I relished each page, found myself feasting over every page as leisurely as I could because I didn't want the book to end.

One Hundred Poets is an ancient accumulation of poems (100 poems by 100 poets) done around 1200 in Japan or so; a classic text, that Hokusai began to illustrate. Roughly 1/3 of his illustrations were published, the rest never were, but he did complete the drawing work for the 100 poems.

The author has a great grasp on the poems, and delights in tracing how Hokusai's illustrations cleverly take the theme of each poem and carries it off in an unexpected or unusual direction, thus creating a second level of artistry. It's hard to find any book that will give Westerners like myself a glimpse of the particularly Japanese way of looking at these poems and art, but this author clearly gives us a keyhole through which I can peek... one of the best I've read, in that regard.

You should know, that when Hokusai drew a picture, that picture got destroyed by the process of carving wood-block plates. So it turns out to be a particular treat to see the roughly half of this book that are Hokusai's original drawings which were NEVER turned into plates. Those drawings, I feel, are far more beautiful than the full-color plates we all know. The variability in thickness of strokes never got captured by the wood-block carvers, and I relished seeing it in these drawings.

In short, it was a perfect way to spend half-hour increments of quiet time; reading the poem, mulling over what it might mean, exploring different translations with the writer of this book and thereby getting a deeper understanding of the poem; tracing the elements of the poem that Hokusai picked out for his drawings; appreciating his sense of humor, pun, and fun in how he chose his drawings' subjects; delighting in the balance, artistry, and whimsy of the drawings; simply enjoying the beauty of each two-page spread. I've never encountered a better book about Japanese drawings than this. It's a treasured piece, one of about 50 books I've stumbled across over the years that I truly hold dear.

I completely agree with the other reviewers that the prints are fantastic and the book is very high quality. I would like to add that the poems are very enjoyable, too. To my knowledge, there is no other translation into English of all 100 poems; the book also has a phonetic transcription of the Japanese original, explanation, and information about the authors.

The poems are all short, and most are based on observation of nature, so they are still surprisingly contemporary, in spite of being, for the most part, seven- or eight hundred years old.

The compilation itself (Oogura Hyakunin Issho, 100 Poems by 100 Poets, or literally 100 Persons, One Poem [Each]) enjoys huge popularity in Japan, and is known and memorized by a great number of people. There is some argument about the poems included: critics have argued that sometimes the poem included is not the best one a poet wrote, and some poets are barely remembered, apart from the poem included in the collection; but overall, the importance of the collection cannot be denied.

What a beautiful book! Leave it on a coffee table and anyone you have over will be drawn in. Very interesting, to see the translated poems that each picture is about. Hokusai was a genius. But you already knew that.