
Katsushika HokusaiJapanese, 1760–1849May one see it?
Amsterdam, Netherlands
The owner is known. Whether it is on view today, the museum does not say, and we were not trained to guess.
1798
Becomes an independent artist
Hokusai passed his name on to a pupil and, for the first time, set out as an independent artist tied to no school, taking the name Hokusai Tomisa.
1800
The name Katsushika Hokusai and his first landscape albums
Hokusai adopted the name by which the world knows him: Katsushika, after the district of Edo where he was born, and Hokusai, “north studio”, in honour of the North Star, symbol of a deity of his Nichiren Buddhist faith. That year he published Famous Sights of the Eastern Capital and Eight Views of Edo, and began to take pupils of his own — some fifty over his lifetime.
c. 1800
Daughter born: Katsushika Ōi
1804–1815
Illustrating the novels of Takizawa Bakin
Hokusai illustrated books by the popular novelist Takizawa Bakin; the fantasy novel Chinsetsu Yumiharizuki (Strange Tales of the Crescent Moon, 1807–1811), about Minamoto no Tametomo, made him especially famous. After thirteen works the partnership broke up, whether over clashing personalities or over how the illustrations should be drawn.
1812
Journey to the Kansai region
The sketches Hokusai made on a journey to the Kansai region so amazed his pupils Maki Bokusen, Hokuun and Hokutei that they persuaded their teacher to publish them as a book — the origin of the Hokusai Manga.
1812
Friendship with the artist Bokusen
Hokusai began a close friendship with the artist Bokusen (1775–1824), thanks to which the Hokusai Manga albums came out in Nagoya between 1814 and 1834.