Image: Vejle Museum of Art
The museum describes the exhibition as Denmark’s largest special exhibition of Katsushika Hokusai to date. It brings together more than 100 national and international loans, including Hokusai’s ukiyo-e prints and book illustrations.
Vejle Kunstmuseum has borrowed more than 100 works by Hokusai from museums in the Netherlands, Italy, Germany and Denmark. Among the works on view are prints from Hokusai’s series ‘Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji’, including ‘The Great Wave’, alongside the three-volume book work ‘One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji’.
The exhibition presents Hokusai’s imagery through natural beauty, everyday working life, mythology and intimate scenes between people. Hokusai lived from 1760 to 1849, and the museum identifies him as Japan’s best-known artist and one of art history’s major figures. The museum characterizes his ukiyo-e woodcuts as the popular art of their time, accessible to most people.
Hokusai described his lifelong passion as being ‘crazy about painting’. His work is placed in contemporary dialogue with works by the Japanese contemporary artist Tabaimo and the Danish artist Ida Kvetny.
Based on works by Hokusai, the Japan experts Gunhild Ravn Borggreen and Mette Holm put Japan then and now into perspective.
