Katsushika Hokusai
Hokusai (born October 1760, Edo [now Tokyo], Japan—died May 10, 1849, Edo) was a Japanese master artist and printmaker of the Ukiyo-e ("pictures of the floating world") school. His early works represent the full spectrum of Ukiyo-e art, including single-sheet prints of landscapes and actors, hand paintings, and surimono ("printed things"), such as greetings and announcements. Later he concentrated on the classical themes of the samurai and Chinese subjects. His famous print series "Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji," published between 1826 and 1833, marked the summit in the history of the Japanese landscape print.
Early years
Hokusai was born in the Honjo quarter just east of Edo (Tokyo) and became interested in drawing at the age of five. He was adopted in childhood by a prestigious artisan family named Nakajima but was never accepted as an heir—possibly supporting the theory that, though the true son of Nakajima, he had been born of a concubine.
Hokusai is said to have served in his youth as clerk in a lending bookshop, and from 15 to 18 years of age he was apprenticed to a wood-block engraver. This early training in the book and printing trades obviously contributed to Hokusai's artistic development as a printmaker.
The earliest contemporary record of Hokusai dates from the year 1778, when, at the age of 18, he became a pupil of the leading Ukiyo-e master, Katsukawa Shunshō. The young Hokusai's first published works appeared the following year—actor prints of the Kabuki theatre, the genre that Shunshō and the Katsukawa school practically dominated.
To judge from the ages of his several children, Hokusai must have married in his mid-20s. Possibly under the influence of family life, from this period his designs tended to turn from prints of actors and women to historical and landscape subjects, especially Uki-e (semi-historical landscapes using Western-influenced perspective techniques), as well as prints of children.
Artist's book illustrations and texts turned as well from the earlier themes to historical and didactic subjects. At the same time, Hokusai's work in the surimono genre during the subsequent decade marks one of the early peaks in his career. Surimono were prints issued privately for special occasions—New Year's and other greetings, musical programs and announcements, private verse selections—in limited editions and featuring immaculate printing of the highest quality.
Hokusai's early 30s were to prove years of personal change. His master Shunshō died early in 1793, and somewhat later Hokusai's young wife passed away, leaving a son and two daughters. In the year 1797 he remarried and adopted the name Hokusai. This change of name marks the beginning of the golden age of his work, which was to continue for a half century.
Mature years
In format, Hokusai’s oeuvre from this period covers the gamut of Ukiyo-e art: single-sheet prints, surimono, picture books and picture novelettes, illustrations to verse anthologies and historical novels, erotic books and album prints, and hand paintings and sketches. In his subject matter, Hokusai only occasionally (in a few notable prints, in paintings, and erotica) chose to compete with Utamaro, the acknowledged master of voluptuous figure prints. Aside from this limitation, however, Hokusai’s work encompassed a wide range, with particular emphasis on landscape views and historical scenes in which figures were often of secondary interest. Around the turn of the century he experimented for a time with Western-style perspective and colouring.
From the early 19th century Hokusai commenced illustrating yomihon (the extended historical novels that were just coming into fashion). Under their influence, his style began to suffer important and clearly visible changes between 1806 and 1807. His figure work becomes more powerful but increasingly less delicate; there is greater attention to classical or traditional themes (especially of samurai, or warriors, and Chinese subjects) and a turning away from the contemporary Ukiyo-e world.
In about the year 1812, Hokusai's eldest son died. This tragedy was not only an emotional but also an economic event, for, as adopted heir to the affluent Nakajima family, the son had been instrumental in obtaining a generous stipend for Hokusai, so that he did not need to worry about the uncertainties of income from his paintings, designs, and illustrations, which at this period were paid for more with "gifts" than with set fees.
Whether for economic reasons or not, from this time on Hokusai's attention turned gradually from novel illustration to the picture book and, particularly, to the type of wood-block-printed copybook designed for amateur artists (including the famous Hokusai manga). Very likely his intention was to find new pupils and hence new patronage, and in this he succeeded to some degree.
Though famed for his detailed prints and illustrations, Hokusai was also fond of displaying his artistic prowess in public—making, for example, huge paintings (some fully 200 square metres [about 2,000 square feet] in area) of mythological figures before festival crowds, in both Edo and Nagoya. He was once even summoned to show his artistic skills before the shogun (the military leader who, although theoretically subordinate to the emperor, was in fact the ruler of Japan).
In the summer of 1828, Hokusai's second wife died. The master was then 68, afflicted intermittently with paralysis and left alone, evidently with only a profligate grandson, who had proved to be an incorrigible delinquent. It is probably no coincidence, therefore, that before long Hokusai's favourite daughter (and pupil), O-ei, broke her unhappy marriage with a minor artist named Tōmei and returned to her father's side, where she was to stay for his remaining years.
An energetic artist, Hokusai rose early and continued painting until well after dark. This was the customary regimen of his long, productive life. Of Hokusai's thousands of books and prints, his "Thirty-six Views of Mt. Fuji" is particularly notable. Published from about 1826 to 1833, this famous series (including supplements, a total of 46 colour prints) marked a summit in the history of the Japanese landscape print; in grandeur of concept and skill of execution there was little approaching it before and nothing to surpass it later—even in the work of Hokusai's famed late contemporary Hiroshige.
Hokusai's frequent changes in domicile (more than 90 dwellings) and of his own name are indicative of the artist's restless nature. Besides his principal noms d'artiste (roughly one per decade), the artist had also some two dozen other occasional pseudonyms, though these were normally used as adjuncts to his principal name of a given period.
Despite his appeals to heaven for "yet another decade—nay, even another five years," on the 18th day of the fourth month of the Japanese calendar "the old man mad with painting," as he called himself, breathed his last. He was 89 but still insatiably seeking for an ultimate truth in art—as he had written 15 years earlier:
From the age of five I have had a mania for sketching the forms of things. From about the age of 50 I produced a number of designs, yet of all I drew prior to the age of 70 there is truly nothing of any great note. At the age of 73 I finally apprehended something of the true quality of birds, animals, insects, fishes, and of the vital nature of grasses and trees. Therefore, at 80 I shall have made some progress, at 90 I shall have penetrated even further the deeper meaning of things, at 100 I shall have become truly marvelous, and at 110, each dot, each line shall surely possess a life of its own. I only beg that gentlemen of sufficiently long life take care to note the truth of my words.
Legacy
Hokusai embodied in his long lifetime the essence of the Ukiyo-e school of art during its final century of development. His stubborn genius also represents, in its 70 years of continuous artistic creation, the prototype of the single-minded artist, striving only to complete a given task. Moreover, Hokusai constitutes a figure who has, since the later 19th century, impressed Western artists, critics, and art lovers alike, more, possibly, than any other single Asian artist.
A mechanical friend for children
A The development of robots that interact socially with people and assist them in everyday life has been an elusive goal of modern science. Despite impressive advances in the mechanical aspects of this problem, producing robots that bond and socialize with people for sustained periods of time has proven difficult. The most successful robots so far have been storytellers, but they have only been able to maintain human interest for a limited time and typically rely on the robot telling stories that change over time. In practice, commercially available robots seldom cross the 10-hour barrier (i.e. individual users tend to spend less than a combined total of 10 hours with the robots before losing interest). This observation is in sharp contrast to the long-term interactions and bonding that commonly develop between humans and their pets.
B In a recent study, researchers from the Institute for Neural Computation in California introduced a state-of-the-art social robot into a classroom of 18- to 24-month-olds for five months as a way of studying human/robot interactions. The researchers, including Fumihide Tanaka and Javier R Movellan, introduced a toddler-sized humanoid robot into a classroom at a childhood education center. One of the QRIO series of robots, the 58cm machine, was originally developed by Sony. Children of toddler age were chosen because they have no preconceived notions of robots, according to Tanaka. One of the goals of the study was to establish whether it was possible for social robots to maintain the interest of children beyond the 10-hour barrier.
C The researchers sent instructions to the robot about every two minutes to do things like giggle, dance, sit down, fall down or walk in a certain direction. The 45 sessions were videotaped, and interactions between toddlers and the robot were later analyzed. The results showed that the quality of those interactions improved steadily over 27 sessions. The interactions deteriorated quickly over the next 15 sessions, when the robot was ordered to behave in a more limited, predictable manner. Finally, the human/robot relations improved in the last three sessions, after the robot had been instructed to display its full range of behaviors.
D 'Initially the children treated the robot very differently from the way they treated each other,' Tanaka said. 'Early in the study some children cried when QRIO fell. But a month into the study, the toddlers helped QRIO stand up by pushing its back or pulling its hands.' The most important aspect of interaction was touch, Tanaka said. At first the toddlers would touch the robot on its face, but later on they would touch it only on its hands and arms, like they would with other humans. Another robot-like toy named Robby, which resembled QRIO but did not move, was used as a control in the study. While hugging of QRIO increased, hugging of Robby decreased throughout the study. Furthermore, when QRIO laid down on the floor as its batteries ran down, a toddler would put a blanket over his silver-colored 'friend' and say 'night-night'. Caretaking behaviors were frequently observed toward QRIO but seldom toward Robby.
E The study concluded that after 45 days of immersion in a childcare center over a period of five months, long-term bonding and socialization occurred between toddlers and a state-of-the-art social robot. Overall, the interaction between children and the robot improved over time and the children progressively treated it more as a peer than a plaything. 'To my knowledge, this is the first long-term study of this sort,' said Ronald Arkin, a roboticist at the Georgia Institute of Technology in the US.
F Tanaka and Movellan are now developing autonomous robots for the toddler classroom. 'It could have great potential in educational settings assisting teachers and enriching the classroom environment,' Tanaka said. The researchers hope that more advanced versions of robots like QRIO could become personalized tutors to assist teachers in classrooms. A robotic tutor could react on the spot to social cues and approximate social skills like facial expression and eye gaze, they said. 'It is becoming clear that, to achieve this goal, we are going to [need to] endow machines with something similar to emotion, not just traditional forms of intelligence,' said Movellan.
G Associate professor David Powers, an expert in artificial intelligence and cognitive science at Flinders University in South Australia, commented, 'In this study it is clearly demonstrated that a limited range of robot behaviors, however impressive, is nowhere near as important to human/robot interaction as being able to make appropriate responses from a broad repertoire of behaviors'. Ronald Arkin was not surprised by the affection demonstrated by the toddlers toward the robot. 'Humans have a tremendous propensity to bond with artifacts, whether it be a car, a doll, or a robot,' he said. But he also cautioned that researchers do not yet understand the consequences of increased human/robot interaction. 'Studying how robots and humans work together can give us insight into whether this is a good thing or a bad thing for society,' Arkin said. 'We need to find out what the consequences are of introducing a robot into a cadre of children. How will that enhance, or potentially interfere with, their social development? Do we really understand the long-term impact of having a robot as a childhood friend?'
Science and filmmaking
Academics are now working more with filmmakers who are impressed by the results of their research in computer-generated imagery (CGI).
A Every year the film academy in the USA celebrates the outstanding achievements of the year in a ceremony known as the Oscars. An increasingly important component of the ceremony is the presentation of the Scientific and Technical awards. In 2004 a notable event took place: the academic world met the cinematographic world when researchers from Stanford University in the USA were awarded an Oscar. These researchers, led by Steve Marschner, were from the field of Computer Graphics at Stanford. They were part of a growing cohort of computer scientists that has become fundamental to moviemaking.
B Films have shown that it is possible to use CGI to make actors look younger, older, weaker or stronger than they actually are in a surprisingly realistic manner. At least, it is possible if the altered actors are not filmed too closely. This is because the difficulty of recreating the textures of both skin and fabric means that the effect is less convincing when seen close up. The work of Marschner and his colleagues has greatly improved the accurate and realistic modeling of both skin and fabric. They recognized that one of the difficulties of creating lifelike characters in the computer world is that in CGI the characters’ skin is opaque (two-dimensional) whereas real skin is in fact translucent (three-dimensional), that is to say it is semi-transparent.
C Marschner and his colleagues received the Oscar for their work in successfully producing a CGI model that simulates translucency; this is when light penetrates skin and then scatters below the skin’s surface before re-emerging. This is called subsurface scattering, and the mathematics for the model goes back many decades to the time when it was used in astrophysics. Because human skin is naturally translucent, it was necessary to be able to create this artificially in order to simulate the soft appearance of real skin. Previous CGI models, which assumed that skin was entirely opaque, resulted in characters with a plastic appearance. The scientists’ new model of CGI was so important in bringing digital characters to life that, within two years of their original research paper, all the major special-effects studios had incorporated it into their digital rendering systems.
D However, despite their award, the scientists, with admirable tenacity, continued their search for perfection, as they still did not feel that they had yet satisfactorily recreated the subtle ways light is reflected. To do this, they began to look in detail at the way skins and fabrics reflect light differently according to their make-up: the exact arrangement of fibers in fabric and the network of fibers in skin. Marschner and his team tried to do this by using computerized tomography—which is most familiar as a medical technique for examining people’s internal organs. Like classical radiology it uses X-rays, but because the image is constructed inside a computer using exposures taken from many different positions, rather than a single exposure on photographic film, it can capture fine details that are invisible in classical radiography.
E Unfortunately, the scientists understood that at this point in time they could not use computerized tomography on skin, because a very high-intensity X-ray is needed to show the kind of detail they wanted and this would be very dangerous for human skin. They have, however, had some success with fabric. Using this new method of imaging, they are able to accurately record the three-dimensional structure of all the fibers in a number of small pieces of fabric. These same pieces of fabric, through the use of CGI, can then be patched together to form an entire garment inside a computer, in the same way that a small group of actors can be made to look like hundreds of people gathered together. A garment created through CGI is therefore made up of pieces of fabric whose internal structure has been pre-recorded. This means that the way light is reflected by the garment can be calculated far more realistically than if the scientists just made a computer model of what they thought the interior of the fabric looked like. Cinematography will benefit from this because, although it may take some years to be able to use computerized tomographic imaging of skin, for the moment the movement of a virtual cloak or the lifting of a computerized hat should look far more realistic.
F In the meantime, according to Marschner’s colleague Kavita Bala, the technology might have an application in online retailing. At the moment people buying clothes over the internet have only a standard photograph to help them choose their purchases. It is hoped that if online shoppers can view items which have been presented through the use of computerized tomography graphics, they will have a much better understanding of what the material the item is made of is really like. Marschner is now working on the way light is scattered from individual hairs. He says, ‘I feel lucky to be working in this niche. I’m a visual person and to be able to spend my time scrutinizing the world around me, trying to understand why it looks the way it does, is very rewarding’.