Even a year’s worth of Hokusai may not be enough to display his genius ~ The Washington Post

Among the artists whose work began to circulate in Europe and the United States was Katsushika Hokusai, known far beyond the limits of the art world for his most famous woodblock print “The Great Wave Off the Coast of Kanagawa.” An exhibition at the Freer Gallery of Art, “Hokusai: Mad About Painting,” focuses not on the long-lived artist’s abundant wood blocks but on his paintings and drawings, of which the Freer has the largest collection in the world. Given the strictures of the museum’s namesake patron, Charles Freer, many of these works can’t leave the museum, which Freer gifted to the nation in 1906.

The exhibition includes about 120 works, including rare preparatory drawings for the woodcuts, spectacular painted screens and books of drawings and prints. A second rotation of material will be installed this spring, amounting to a two-part festival of Hokusai over almost a year.

Washingtonians can give thanks, yet again, that the Smithsonian’s museums are free, because this exhibition is not to be absorbed or appreciated in a single visit. The show isn’t enormous by ordinary standards, but it is rich and full of subtleties and delights. Hokusai lived to be almost 90, and not only did he remain productive throughout his long career, his creativity seemed to gather force in his final decades. If nothing else, this exhibition overwhelms simply by giving abundant evidence of that creativity. One case contains 14 volumes of his books of manga doodles — incisive, detailed, perfect drawings of this, that and everything: trees, dragons, fish, sea life, shells, waves and churning water, along with a gallery of faces of all types bearing all manner of expressions.