Katsushika Hokusai's Fugaku hyakkei

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One of the more enduring myths in the comics milieu is the one that states Katsushika Hokusai's coining of the word "manga" around 1814 (the word today means "comics," but it meant "sketches," to say it simply, or, according to Frederik L. Schodt in Manga! Manga! The World of Japanese Comics, 1989 [1983], Kodansha: 18: "whimsical sketches"). Mitsugu Katayori explained (International Journal of Comic Art, Vol. 7, # 2, Fall/Winter, 2005: 48): "The word manga in the phrase Hokusai Manga [a generic title to designate fifteen woodblock-printed volumes - manuals to painters - published between 1814 - # 1 - and 1834 - # 12 -; three posthumous volumes were published between 1849 and 1878] comes from the word manzen, which means browsing aimlessly. A long time ago, in China, there was a bird called Mangachuko. It had long legs and ate shellfish from the river. Hokusai imaged the bird when he named the collection of his drawings. He sketched as much scenery as possible, like this bird that picked up anything and everything, browsing in the river." Santō Kyōden used the word "manga" before Hokusai in the kibyōshi (yellow covers) picture book: Shiki no yukikai (seasonal passersby), 1798 (Adam L. Kern, International Journal of Comic Art, Vol. 9, # 1, Spring, 2007: 23; see above). Adam even registers older uses of the word: "the term appears even earlier than Seasonal Passersby, within the text of Suzuki Kankyō's Miscellany of Comic Scribbles (Mankaku zuihitsu) of 1777 -- well over three decades prior to Hokusai's use in his title. And a couple years earlier than that, Hanabusa Itchō (1652-1724) used the Chinese graphs for manga -- though glossing them to be read as mankaku -- in the title of a work (Mankaku zukōgun chōkakukei, 1769)" (ditto: 24). The little rub that made me wonder in the above quote was: how come someone who died in 1724 wrote a book in 1769? That's when I put the www to good use and asked the excellent essay's author on the Plat list. Here's what he answered (Jun, 22, 2007): "Hanabusa Itcho produced "Mankaku zukogun chokakukei" as a manuscript sometime during his lifetime -- nobody knows precisely when -- but it was only published posthumously in 1769." Thanks again for your kind answer, Adam! This proves that trying to find firsts is a tricky business. If asked though, I would say now that, until proven wrong, Hanabusa Itchō coined the term, probably during the late 17th to early 18th century.

Fugako hyakkei is a religious book. As Henry D. Smith put it in his great intro to One Hundred Views of Mt. Fuji (George Braziller, 2001 [1988]: 7): "One Hundred Views of Mt. Fuji is a work of such unending visual delight that it is easy to overlook its underlying spiritual intent. Hokusai was, as he prefaced his signature, "Seventy-five Years of Age" when the first volume of the work appeared in 1834, and his effort to capture the great mountain from every angle, in every context, was in the deepest sense a prayer for the gift of immortality that lay hidden within the heart of the volcano. By showing life itself in all its shifting forms against the unchanging form of Fuji, with the vitality and wit that inform every page of the book, he sought not only to prolong his own life but in the end to gain admission to the realm of the Immortals." Fugakku hyakkei was published in three volumes. The colophon of book one has Katsushika Hokusai's famous declaration (henry D. Smith's translation, ditto: 7): "From the age of six I had a penchant for copying the form of things, and from about fifty, my pictures were frequently published; but until the age of seventy, nothing that I drew was worthy of notice. At seventy-three years, I was somewhat able to fathom the growth of plants and trees, and the structure of birds, animals, insects, and fish. Thus when I reach eighty years, I hope to have made increasing progress, and at ninety to see further into the underlying principles of things, so that at one hundred years I will have achieved a divine state in my art, and at one hundred and ten, every dot and every stroke will be as though alive. Those of you who live long enough, bear witness that these words of mine prove not false. Told by Gabyō Rōjin Manji" (Manji [Hokusai's last name in a long list], old man mad about painting; see the original Japanese text in image # 4, above).

Fugaku hyakkei is part of comics' expanded field, I guess. I see no reasons, other than the usual sociological ones, to exclude this marvelous book from the restrict field though. Comics are both narrative and descriptive. This is a descriptive book: it depicts life, in all its forms (even the imaginary ones). Descriptions are usually on the background while the story unfolds in the foreground. Hokusai brings the former to center stage, but, as we'll see below, he did even more than that...

In the chapter "The Impossible Definition" of his book Système de la bande dessinée (Presses Universitaires de France, 1999) Thierry Gröensteen starts almost rejecting essentialism ("it has become almost impossible to retain any definitive criteria that is universaly held to be true": 14; translation by Bart Beaty and Nick Nguyen) to later invoke a "foundation principle" ("their common denominator and, therefore, the central element of comics, the first criteria in the foundational order, is iconic solidarity:" 18). If that's not hardcore essentialism (not to mention old school Structuralism) I don't know what essentialism is. But, anyway, to be as incoherent as Gröensteen, I'll use his "foundational principle" to say that, there's no doubt about it: Hokusai's images in Fugaku hyakkei show iconic solidarity in the highest degree. The link between all the one hundred and two images being the triangular form of the mountain. I also want to put a geometry concept on the comics theory table (Hokusai loved geometry, by the way...): the idea of locus (the totality of all points, satisfying a given condition; the locus, as applied to comics, is a third way between narration and description). That's certainly what Hokusai did around Mt. Fuji: he searched for geographical points, hither and yon, from where the mountain could be seen. But that's also what every other comics artist does... all the time... even if their Mt. Fujis are called Mongo, or Metropolis... even if their points are just figments of their fertile imaginations...

Images:

1. page from Shiki no yukikai by Santō Kyōden (w) and Kitao Shigemasa (a) (1798); the word "manga" (漫画) can be seen in the fifth column from the left (second) at the bottom (as published in the aforementioned page of the IJOCA);

2. a "Falcon Feather" (first edition) copy of Fugaku hyakkei (hundred views of Mount Fuji, 1834; cover);

3. "Kanagawa oki nami ura" (the great wave off Kanagawa): print # 1 of Fugaku Sanjūrokkei (thirty six views of Mount Fuji; 1826 - 1833):

4. Fugaku hyakkei's colophon's first page as published in One Hundred Views of Mt. Fuji (George Braziller, 2001 [1988]): the fifth column (second) includes the declaration translated above; the seal (originally in red) represents Mt. Fuji and the I Ching trigrame for lake; in the fourth column (third) appears the name of the engraver: Egawa Tomekichi.

PS Book twelve of Katsushika Hokusai's Manga (sketches; 1834):http://www.touchandturn.com/hokusai/default.asp?lang=english
Richard Kruml's ukiyo-e (images of the floating world):
http://www.japaneseprints-london.com/index.html