8 August 2026
Firmly in the floating world after finding a robust Hokusai monograph at Edith's and reading it almost all the way through the night. These are the works that have been with me since:
Girls at their Toilette, from the series Seven Stylish Foibles (late 1790s) Mountain Tea-house, album-plate from Mists of Sandara (1798) Pheasant in Autumn from Album from Life (c. 1814) Incoming waves/Receding waves, from Hokusai Manga (1815) Turtles in Sayama Pond, from Hokusai manga (1817) Sunset over Ryogoku Bridge from Thirty-six Views of Mt Fuji (early 1830s) Mt Fuji from Kajikazawa, from *Thirty-six Views of Mt Fuii (early 1830s) The Horse-washing Falls, from The Waterfalls (c. 1833) Suspension-bridge between Hida and Etchu, from The Bridges (c. 1834) 'The Ghost of O-Iwa, from Ghost Tales (c. 1831) Tiger in the Snow (1849)
There's so much to say. But it was really my first time swimming in the totality of his work, and to me the overwhelming thing is rhythm. The rhythms of nature (human inclusive). In waves, waterfalls, hair, fabric folds, wood grain, turtle shell patterns, bird feathers, shifting clouds, and, of course, geologic formations. Motion and precision.
I sent Tiger in the Snow to my dad, and he responded with recently captured images from the Inouye solar telescope that show the surface of the sun in more detail than we've ever seen before. A network of burnt-golden vortices. It looks just like the pattern of the tiger's fur. This is the timeless alignment—his subjects are his own magnifying device toward an inner actuality that I am beginning to see in the makeup of everything.