1794, Hokusai painted several small sheets for New Year’s Day, the size of playing cards.
In 1795, the artist completed surimonos for women, mixed with surimonos of personal objects, such as the one that shows an embroidered towel, a sack of bran, and an umbrella, hung on a gate. These objects indicate that the lady of the house has just taken a bath. These surimonos were signed Hishikawa Sôri, or simply Sôri.
In 1796, Hokusai painted a fairly large number of surimonos. The most remarkable ones are those representing, in two long bands, a gathering of men and women on ‘table-beds’, with feet in the river, upon which the group enjoys the cool evening air.
One finds, in 1797, surimonos reproducing objects from daily life, such as packages for packets of perfumes with a plum branch in bloom. On one of them, a woman mocks the kami (spirit) Fokoroku, on whose head she has placed a paper hen. Another represents a boat, with a showman with a monkey in it. The artist also completed a series of surimonos shaded with irony towards the gods, on yellow paper, with the subjects coloured in violet and green. This year was the year of the snake in the Japanese almanac, which explains a pretty little surimono that represents a woman who, upon seeing a snake, has fallen on her back with a leg in the air. Finally, one finds groups of large images, showing women walking in the countryside.
Mount Fuji and an Old Pine, c. 1802.
Black ink, colour and gofun on silk, 29.4 × 53.7 cm.
Japanese Ukiyo-e Museum, Matsumoto.
The River of Jewels near Ide, c. 1802.
Ink, colour and gofun on paper, 100.9 × 41.4 cm.
Chibashi bijutsukan, Chiba City Museum of Art, Chiba.
The River of Jewels near Mishima, c. 1802.
Ink, colour and gofun on paper, 88.2 × 41 cm.
Hokusai Museum, Obuse.
In 1798, Hokusai produced numerous surimonos representing a horse, which is, along with the earth, one of the elements of the Japanese calendar. This representation of a horse sometimes takes the form of a horse’s head, made by a child’s fingers across a frame. Among the surimonos of note painted during that year are: a toy seller walking on a mat while children watch; two children, one of whom is making a puppet dance above a screen, while the other, squatting on the ground, watches with his hands under his chin; a tea merchant in front of the Uyeno temple in Edo with a group of women and children; men and women disguised as the gods and goddesses of the Japanese Olympus; a horse race; a large landscape of the banks of the Sumida with very small people represented. Other surimonos show women: the Tchanoyu tea ceremony for women; two women reading while lying on the ground, one with her head resting on the paper, the other reading with a pretty tilt of her head to the side; two women rolled up together on the floor, tearing at a letter. Among the great surimonos of women from this year and the years to come, Hokusai escaped from the ‘precious’ or ‘doll-like’ grace, typical of his early years. His creatures become more ample, more true, and approach true feminine grace, as a result of studying from nature.
The year 1799 was, in the Japanese calendar, the year of the sheep on the zodiac and many surimonos have a sheep in the corner of the composition. One of these surimonos represents a Japanese man holding a sheep in his arms. It is important to note this story about the sheep: in the past, the Japanese, surprised to see the Dutch making the voyage to Japan without women, believed that the sheep on board took their place. They were so convinced of this that, later, the Japanese women who entered relationships with the foreigners were called ‘sheep’ by their compatriots. Some of the surimonos from this year were curiously composed, as follows: a woman selling toothpaste powder fashioning a piece of black camphorwood to make a toothbrush; a manufacturer of wigs and mats; a silk peddler and the manufacture of silk in the countryside. There was also a series of busts of women. One also notes a series representing young women, with a ‘sinuous’ grace: a woman sweeping snow or a woman standing, folding a piece of fabric as tall as she is with an elegant undulation to her body. A surimono also represents a toad covered in warts. Finally, is a large surimono that is quite surprising: a half opened blind looking out on a flowering branch, part of which can be seen, in shadow, through the weave of the blind.
In 1800, the artist completed a series of fifteen surimonos, ‘The Childhoods of Historical Figures’ and a series of seven surimonos, ‘The Wise Men of the Bamboo’, in which old wise men are represented as modern women.
Woman beneath a Willow in Winter, c. 1802.
Black and coloured ink on paper, 136.5 × 46.2 cm.
Henry and Lee Harrison Collection.
One series of twenty-four surimonos is entitled ‘Filial Piety’. In them, one sees a charming drawing of a woman doing laundry, her upper body bare. Her torso is studded with petals from a flowering plum tree above her being shaken by the wind.
Another series represents the twelve months of the year, as seen by women, where in one graceful drawing, a young Japanese girl scours a floor while her mistress watches lazily. Another shows three pieces of music represented by three female musicians.
One series is entitled ‘Eight Bedrooms’. It contains eight representations of small women, one of which, with a bare torso, is washing herself in front of a monkey onto which she has thrown her robe. The monkey was, that particular year, the animal of the year and reappears in several of the plates. Another series is a caricature, in the Otsuye genre, of industrial imagery of the Japanese Epinal of Otsu, near Kyoto.
In 1801 appeared a series of twelve little upright works entitled ‘A Pair of Folding Screens’. It shows a series of small modern women with old men from another century at their feet. Some plates represent women making marionettes play in a little theatre, or actors and theatrical sets, notably with Daïkoku making pieces of gold rain down on a woman getting water from a well.
This year, still life surimonos began to appear and would furnish Hokusai with original compositions and admirable prints. These were small works with a dead duck and a porcelain bowl on a lacquered tray or a bird in a cage and a vase of flowers.
On these large plates, one can see the arrival of the manzai at a palace, where a group of children burst with joy welcoming them and where one sees, behind the blinds, the shadow theatre of princesses full of curiosity, but not showing themselves.
Courtesan Resting, c. 1802.
Black and coloured ink and gofun on paper, 29.2 × 44.8 cm.
Peter and Diana Grilli Collection.
Two Women and a Servant on the Banks of the Sumida; a Man Sealing the Bottom of a Boat, excerpt from the series Birds of the Old Capital (The Gulls) (Miyakodori), 1802.
Galerie Berès, Paris.
Concert under the Wisteria, c. 1796–1804.
Yoko-ōban, nishiki-e, 25.2 × 38.4 cm.
Musée national
