【原】(Metro English - 123 - Art - The Great Wave off Kanagawa

Art - The Great Wave off Kanagawa - Katsushika Hokusai

Although you may not know the name Katsushika Hokusai, it’s almost guaranteed that you’ve seen at least one of his works: Great Wave off Kanagawa (神奈川沖浪裏 かながわおきなみうら (ca. 1830–32), more commonly known as The Great Wave. Arguably the most famous image in all of Japanese art, this iconic woodblock print depicts a huge, frothing wave as it crests over a distant Mount Fuji. Born in Edo (modern Tokyo) in 1760, the influential artist and printmaker led a life that was both intensely productive and undeniably eccentric. Here are seven things you probably don’t know about Hokusai.  虽然你可能不知道名字katsushika hokusai，但可以保证你至少看过他的作品之一：神奈川大浪（神奈川大浪沖（约1830-32），更常见的称为大浪。可以说，这是所有日本艺术中最著名的形象，这个标志性的木版印刷描绘了一个巨大的，泡沫波，因为它的顶部盖过了远处的富士山。1760年生于江户（现代东京），这位有影响力的艺术家和版画制作者过着一种既富有成效又不可否认的古怪的生活。这里有七件关于北斋的事情你可能不知道。

1. He was originally destined for a career as a mirror polisher to the upper classes, not an artist.  他原本注定要成为上层阶级的擦镜工，而不是艺术家。

At a young age, Hokusai was adopted by an uncle who held the prestigious position of mirror polisher in the household of the shogun, the commander-in-chief of feudal Japan. It was assumed that the young Hokusai would succeed him in the family business, and he likely received an excellent education in preparation for a job that would place him in direct contact with the upper class. In 19th-century Japan, learning to write also meant learning to draw, since the skills and materials required for either activity were almost identical.  小时候，北斋被一个叔叔收养，他在封建日本的总司令幕府的家里担任很有声望的擦镜师的职位。据推测，年轻的北斋会接替他的家族事业，也会在准备接替能使他与上层阶级直接接触的工作时接受良好的教育。在19世纪的日本，学习写作也意味着学习绘画，因为这两项活动所需的技能和材料几乎相同。

When Hokusai’s formal education began at age six, he displayed an early artistic talent that would lead him down a new path. He began to separate himself from his uncle’s trade in his early teens—perhaps because of a personal argument, or perhaps because he believed polishable metal mirrors would soon be replaced by the silvered glass mirrors being imported by the Dutch—and worked first as a clerk at a lending library and then later as a woodblock carver. At age 19, Hokusai joined the studio of ukiyo-e artist Katsukawa Shunshō and embarked on what would become a seven-decade-long career in art.  当北斋六岁开始接受正规教育时，他表现出了早期的艺术才能，这将引导他走上一条新的道路。他在十几岁的时候就开始脱离叔叔的行业，也许是因为发生了一些争论，或者是因为他相信可以擦亮的金属镜很快就会被荷兰人进口的镀银玻璃镜所取代，他先是在一家借阅图书馆当职员，后来又当了木刻工。19岁的时候，北斋加入了浮世绘艺术家katsukawa shunsh_的工作室，开始了长达70年的艺术生涯。

2. He relocated 93 times and changed his name 30 times.  他搬家93次，改名30次。

Hokusai was never in one place for long. He found cleaning distasteful—instead, he allowed dirt and grime to build up in his studio until the place became unbearable and then simply moved out. All told, the artist changed residences 93 times throughout his life. Hokusai also had difficulty settling on a single moniker. Although changing one’s name was customary among Japanese artists at this time, Hokusai took the practice even further with a new noms d’artiste roughly each decade. Together with his numerous informal pseudonyms, the printmaker claimed more than 30 names in total. His tombstone bears his final name, Gakyo Rojin Manji, which translates to “Old Man Mad about Painting.”  北斋从未在一个地方呆太久。相反，他觉得打扫令人不快，他让灰尘和污垢堆积在他的工作室里，直到这个地方变得无法忍受，然后就搬出去了。总之，这位艺术家一生中换了93次住所。北斋也很难适应一个绰号。尽管在这个时期，日本艺术家习惯于改名，但北斋每十年就要换一个新的艺名。除了众多非正式的笔名，他总共承认了30多个名字。他的墓碑上刻着他最后的名字，gakyo rojin manji，意思是“为绘画而疯狂的老人”。

3. He was a born showman and a savvy self-promoter.  他是个天生的表演家和精明的自我推销者。

As the story goes, Hokusai was once called before the shogun’s court to demonstrate his artistic talent. In response, he painted a long blue mark on a sheet of paper—then dipped a chicken’s feet in red paint and chased it across the image, creating a clever riff on the traditional motif of maple leaves floating on Japan’s Tatsuta River. Hokusai was also a savvy self-promoter, creating massive paintings in public with the help of his students. At a festival in Edo in 1804, he painted a 180-meter-long portrait of a Buddhist monk using a broom as a brush. Years later, he publicized his best-selling series of sketchbooks with a three-story-high work depicting the founder of Zen Buddhism.  据说，有一次北野三郎被请到幕府前展示他的艺术才华。作为回应，他在一张纸上画了一个长长的蓝色标记，然后将一只鸡的脚浸在红色油漆中，然后在图像上追逐它，在漂浮在日本鞑靼河上的传统枫叶图案上创造了一个巧妙的裂缝。北斋也是一个精明的自我推销者，在学生的帮助下，在公共场合创作了大量的绘画作品。1804年，在江户的一个节日上，他用扫帚作为刷子，画了一幅180米长的佛教僧侣肖像。几年后，他以一部三层楼高的描绘禅宗创始人的作品，宣传了自己最畅销的素描系列。

4. He also illustrated board games, drawing instruction books, paper lanterns, and cut-out dioramas. 他还画了棋盘游戏、画册、纸灯笼和剪纸。

Hokusai was one of the 19th century’s leading designers of toy prints—sheets of paper meant to be cut into pieces and then assembled into three-dimensional dioramas. He also made several board games, one of which depicted a pilgrim’s route between Edo and nearby religious sites. Consisting of several small landscape designs, it probably served as a precursor for his eventual masterpiece, the series “Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji” (ca. 1830-32). He illustrated countless books of poetry and fiction, and even published his own how-to manuals for aspiring artists. One of these guides, titled Hokusai Manga (1814-19) and filled with drawings he originally made for his students to copy, became a best-seller that gave the artist his first taste of fame.

北斋是19世纪玩具印刷品的主要设计师之一，这些纸片被切割成一片一片的，然后组装成三维立体模型。他还做了几次棋盘游戏，其中一个游戏描绘了江户和附近宗教遗址之间的朝圣路线。它由几个小的景观设计组成，可能是他最终杰作“富士山三十六景”（约1830-1832）的先驱之作。他为无数的诗歌和小说作插图，甚至为有抱负的艺术家出版了自己的指导手册。其中一本名叫《北国漫画》（1814-1819）的指南，里面有他最初为学生们绘制的供他们临摹的图画，它成了一本畅销书，使这位艺术家首次名声大振。

5. He began his most famous work at the age of 70.他从70岁，才开始创作他最著名的作品。

Although Hokusai was prosperous in middle age, a series of setbacks—intermittent paralysis, the death of his second wife, and serious misconduct by his wayward grandson—left him in financial straits in his later years. In response, the elderly artist funneled his energy into his work, beginning his famous series “Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji” (which included The Great Wave) in 1830. Another catalyst for the iconic set of images was the introduction of Prussian blue to the market. As a synthetic pigment, it lowered the price enough that it became feasible to use the shade in prints for the first time.

他在70岁时开始创作他最著名的作品，尽管北斋人在中年时很富裕，但之后一系列的挫折、间歇性的瘫痪、第二任妻子的去世以及任性孙子的严重不当行为使他在晚年陷入了经济困境。而作为对这一切的回应，这位上了年纪的艺术家将自己的精力投入到他的作品创作中，并于1830年开始了他著名的系列作品“三十六景富士山”（包括巨浪）。这组标志性作品的另一个催化剂是普鲁士蓝被引入了市场。作为一种合成颜料，它的价格降到了足够低，使得第一次在印刷品中使用它画暗面成为可能。

6. He produced a staggering 30,000 works in his lifetime.  他毕生创作了令人震惊的3万部作品。

This number is due in part to the exceptional length of his career, which officially began in 1779 and lasted until his death in 1849 at the age of 89. Hokusai was also intensely productive, rising with the sun and painting late into the night. Although a fire in his studio destroyed much of his work in 1839, he is thought to have produced some 30,000 paintings, sketches, woodblock prints, and picture books in total. His last words were said to have been a request for five or 10 more years in which to paint.  这一数字部分是由于他的职业生涯的特殊长度，1779年正式开始，直到1849年他去世，享年89岁。北海道也非常富有成效，与太阳一起升起，一直画到深夜。尽管1839年工作室的一场大火烧毁了他的大部分作品，但据说他总共创作了约30000幅绘画、素描、木版印刷品和图画书。据说他最后一句话是要求在五到十年后再绘画。

7. His works shaped the course of the Impressionist movement.  他的作品塑造了印象派运动的进程。

During Hokusai’s life, the Japanese government enforced isolationist policies that prevented foreigners from entering and citizens from leaving. However, that didn’t stop his work from influencing some of the biggest names in Western art history. When Japan opened its borders in the 1850s, Hokusai’s work crossed continents to land in the hands of artists such as Claude Monet, who acquired 23 of the Japanese artist’s prints. Edgar Degas also took cues from Hokusai, in particular his thousands of sketches of the human form. The rapid embrace of his prints by European artists may have been in part due to his use of a Western-style vanishing point perspective. Other print designers in Japan employed the Asian perspective, which positioned far-away objects higher on the picture plane, an effect that, to a Western eye, made it appear as though the ground was tilting upwards.  在北斋的一生中，日本政府实施了孤立主义政策，阻止外国人进入，也不允许自己的公民离开祖国。然而，这并没有阻止他的作品影响西方艺术史上一些最伟大的人物。当日本在19世纪50年代开放国界时，葛饰北斋的作品跨越了大陆，落到了克劳德·莫奈（Claude Monet）等艺术家手中，莫奈得到了23幅这位日本艺术家的作品。埃德加·德加还借鉴了北斋，特别是他数千幅人体素描。欧洲艺术家对他的作品的迅速接受可能部分是由于他使用了西方风格的消失点透视法。日本的其他印刷设计师采用了亚洲视角，这种视角将远处的物体定位在更高的平面上，这一效果在西方人看来，使它看起来像是地面向上倾斜。

pseudonyms  笔名

woodblock print 版画

moniker 绰号

wayward  任性的，难以自控的

Prussian blue  普鲁士蓝

moniker 绰号

wayward  任性的，难以自控的

sketches of the human form 人体素描

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