[the spark]
Blood, Sweat, and Years of Dedication
Hokusai grew up in Edo, the son of a renowned mirror polisher.
His father expected him to take up the family trade, but by age six, Hokusai was already covering any scrap of paper he could find with sketches of birds and carp.
He worked as a woodcarver, a sort of compromise between his real passion and the family business, but he never stopped sketching. In his thirties, he published the Hokusai Manga: twelve volumes of drawings that taught form and motion to readers across Japan.
He spent decades refining every stroke, but still, he was hardly famous in his hometown and utterly unknown outside of Japan.
After some thirty thousand prints and sketches, the world took notice of one of his prints: The Great Wave. That single piece lifted Hokusai’s name to international acclaim. But for Hokusai, one moment in the limelight couldn't satisfy a lifetime of work.
So he didn't rest on his laurels. He wasn't chasing fame; he was chasing perfection. He kept at it, for himself, and the love of the craft.
Decades later, in his seventies, a stumble while climbing a tree to view Mount Fuji nearly cost him his life. He recovered and, propelled by that close call, set out to capture every facet of the iconic mountain.
He worked from sunrise to sunset, carving out woodblocks and proofing prints. His Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji traced the peak in a rosy cherry-blossom light, behind fishing boats, and beneath stormy mountain clouds.
What began as a personal vow became a body of work that encapsulated an era.
