One of my favorite parts of the trip my family recently made to Japan was coming across the Creative Museum Tokyo and happening upon their exhibition featuring Hokusai.
It felt like fate as the words coming through the headset made it clear that this was not just about observing the art this legend of a man had created but his processes, his literal invention of the foundation of Japanese manga art direction. Further impressive was that this man would typically challenge himself past whatever limitations existed in his physical tools for carving and painting by effectively forcing insane hard mode on himself, with many of his directional pieces emphasizing organic, flowing movement with the strict use of only a single, unbreaking line to make the whole figure.
While this was featured near the end of the exhibition, I feel it's appropriate to show first the tools this man and his apprentices used to make the prints that ultimately became the foundation of printed manga.
Like damn, that's HARD CORE AAAAAAA. And they made not just lines but full printed color pages that fully encapsulate the majesty of what Japanese nature, life, folklore was like in the real world and these men's imagination.
One of my favorite pieces on display was this spider web with a Japanese maple leaf and the spider that calls it home. The way the spider web was interpreted, to me, evokes the feeling of a gentle breeze blowing through it with the way the strands of the web are hastily but still so carefully placed, allowed to be free flowing and random and yet perfectly intentional. It's all framed with a masterful use of negative space and flow that invites the viewer's eye fully around the art to be able to take it all in.
The gesture animals were another point of obsession for me, given my love with nature and animals in general. Negative space corralled by single lines made such movement, mass.
IT WAS MOVING OKAY. I did cry. Several times.
One of the best parts of the exhibition that no one was allowed to photograph or video was the actual 'The Great Wave off Kanagawa'
Since I wasn't able to take a picture, hopefully this stand-in copy and pasted image from Wikipedia will give you at least the sense of how f***ing amazing that was to stand in the presence of.
It was absolutely the best birthday present I could ever imagine, to not only be in Tokyo, Japan for the first time in my life but to get to stand in the presence and bask in the genius of this God-tier legend... I had a hard time controlling myself in public the whole trip with how utterly insanely happy I was but this museum exhibition was something else entirely, like cosmic fate rewarding and healing me for the pain I'd been through or something.
Outside of the exhibition, the museum also had some really cool installations by other artists. The most fascinating of these to me and my husband was a collection of four metal casts made from the recorded path of a hanging metal ball during earthquakes in different parts of Japan. I'll only include one, out of respect of hoping others go check it out in person, too, if you ever can.
The garden terrace of the restaurant by the museum floor was also truly something to behold, at least to me and my family. It was gorgeous and most large buildings in Tokyo featured similar foliage built integral to the building. The plants had name tags with info blurbs about them, as well as some of the insect life they attracted.
My final thought will be a repeat: This was an absolute treat for my soul and only served to reinforce what I desire to do with my life - basically, same Hokusai. Same. Thank you for leaving behind an unmatchable, tear-evoking legacy to inspire others for generations and endless years to come.
