Katsushika Hokusai, a Japanese genius
A famous magazine in the U.S. featured the top 100 most important people of the past 1,000 years in 1998. One of them is Katsushika Hokusai, a famous ukiyo-e artist during the Edo period. The famous French painter Edgar Degas once said, “Hokusai is not just one artist among others in the ‘Floating World.’ He is an island, a continent, and a whole world in himself.”
The works of Hokusai and others were first introduced to Europe in the latter half of the nineteenth century. They had a great influence on Western art, which became known as Japonism. Another French artist, Félix Bracquemond, came across prints of Hokusai Manga around 1856. Paintings in Europe were usually about war, religion, and important people. Hokusai Manga, on the other hand, included all kinds of things, like common people, small creatures, imaginary animals, and ghosts.
Many artists were influenced by the works of ukiyo-e and Japanese art in general. Vincent van Gogh was a great fan of Japanese art; he collected hundreds of ukiyo-e paintings and used them as backgrounds for some of his paintings.