Hokusai and the Comic Tradition in Japanese Painting

Abstract

Recent critics who are bent on downgrading Hokusai also disparage his sense of humor.1 It is true that he is not one of the outstanding comic artists of Japan, in spite of the numerous droll stories he illustrated during the first part of his career. Though he worked at a time when the picaresque had a wide appeal in art as well as in literature, he was never particularly rowdy in his depiction of country humors. As a satirist he is easily outranked by his much less well-known contemporary Bumpō, and as a caricaturist he lacks the bite of a Gesshō or a Nantei. Anyone looking for wit in linear expression will find it in Kōrin rather than in him. While fertile in creating grotesque and fantastic forms, he has little of the ferocity which marks the greatest inventors in this field. Yet any protracted acquaintance with his total work leads to the conclusion that there is indeed much humor in Hokusai, sometimes cruel, sometimes unexpectedly gentle and whimsical. Those who deny its existence or denigrate its qu...