Ive misquoted this so often that I owe it to record what Hokusai actually - or at least reportedly - said about making art. It was this: From the time that I was 6 years old I had the mania of drawing the form of objects. As I came to be 50 I had published an infinity of designs; but all that I have produced before the age of 70 is not worth being counted. It is at the age of 73 that I have somewhat begun to understand the structure of true nature, of animals and grasses, and trees and birds, and fishes and insects; consequently at 80 years of age I shall have made still more progress; at 90 I hope to have penetrated into the mystery of things; at 100 years of age I should have reached decidedly a marvellous degree, and when I shall be 110, all that I do, every point and every line, shall be instinct with life - and I ask all those who shall live as long as I do to see if I have not kept my word. Hokusai was 75 when he wrote this. He died in his late eighties, apparently still dissatisfied, railing at his own incompetence.
Posted on: Sat, 25 Oct 2014 19:31:45 +0000
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