Last year, I uploaded each month paintings and poems from the Japanese Art and Haiku calendar which I had given to Dorothy. Dorothy already bought a calendar for this year, but I have bought another one of Japanese art. In this one, all the paintings are by the same artist, Katsoshika Hokusai (1760-1849). The calendar gives no background information regarding Hokusai, other than the years of his birth and death, but I googled him (after typing h-o-k, his name was the second prompt after “hokey cokey”!). According to Wikipedia, he is best known as author of the woodblock print series “Thirty six Views of Mount Fuji), which he created both as a response to a domestic travel boom and as part of a personal obsession with Mount Fuji. It was this series, specifically the prints “The Great Wave”and “Fuji in Clear Weather”, that secured Hokusai’s fame both in Japan and overseas. Neither of these particular paintings appears in the calendar, although there are some others from the “Thirty six Views”. There are no poems in the calendar, but I have bought a book of haiku published by the British Museum, so I can select poems myself to upload with the pictures. One of the rules of haiku which I did not know was that each one has to be associated with a season, and they appear in the book under the relevant season, which will make it easier for me to choose an appropriate one each month. Here is the January painting by Hokusai from the calendar: detail from Two Small Fishing Boats on the Sea. And here is a poem: no yi yama yi ugoku mono nashi yuki no asa on moor and mountain nothing stirs this morn of snow Chiyo-ni (1703-75). The British Museum book tells me that she is regarded as the most celebrated female haiku poet. At the age of 52, she became a nun, taking vows which allowed her to associate in a socially acceptable way with male poets. Nevertheless, her haiku reflect Buddhist tenets.
Posted on: Thu, 01 Jan 2015 11:36:20 +0000
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