Hokusai One Hundred Poets by Peter
Morse
Gorgeous Book, Great Scholarship
This lavishly illustrated, oversized (17 x 10) book brings together the last
major print series of the celebrated Japanese artist Hokusai (1760-1849)
and the Japanese poetry that inspired these beautiful prints. Whether
showing semi-nude women abalone divers struggling with their catch while
a male crew of shriveled old salts leers from a nearby boat, or the carefree
rapture of a leisurely group of men and women observing cherry blossoms
at their peak, Hokusai captures, with drama and delicacy, sublime and
ridiculous states. The artists simplicity, though deceptive, is also
remarkable: he illustrates a poem about a lovers seaside tryst with a
magnificently imposing yet unadorned sailing vessel, its small window
offering a coy glimpse of the fortunate couple inside. Each of the 111
color prints (as well as 41 black-and-white sketches of projected prints
apparently never completed) is accompanied by the poem, in Japanese
and English, a biographical note on the poet and by Peter Morses
comments on literary and artistic intention and execution.
Personal Review: Hokusai One Hundred Poets by Peter Morse
I read this on my bus commutes... and quickly found it such a treat that I
relished each page, found myself feasting over every page as leisurely as I
could because I didn't want the book to end.
One Hundred Poets is an ancient accumulation of poems (100 poems by
100 poets) done around 1200 in Japan or so; a classic text, that Hokusai
began to illustrate. Roughly 1/3 of his illustrations were published, the rest
never were, but he did complete the drawing work for the 100 poems.
The author has a great grasp on the poems, and delights in tracing how
Hokusai's illustrations cleverly take the theme of each poem and carries it
off in an unexpected or unusual direction, thus creating a second level of
artistry. It's hard to find any book that will give Westerners like myself a
glimpse of the particularly Japanese way of looking at these poems and
art, but this author clearly gives us a keyhole through which I can peek...
one of the best I've read, in that regard.

You should know, that when Hokusai drew a picture, that picture got
destroyed by the process of carving wood-block plates. So it turns out to
be a particular treat to see the roughly half of this book that are Hokusai's
original drawings which were NEVER turned into plates. Those drawings, I
feel, are far more beautiful than the full-color plates we all know. The
variability in thickness of strokes never got captured by the wood-block
carvers, and I relished seeing it in these drawings.
In short, it was a perfect way to spend half-hour increments of quiet time;
reading the poem, mulling over what it might mean, exploring different
translations with the writer of this book and thereby getting a deeper
understanding of the poem; tracing the elements of the poem that Hokusai
picked out for his drawings; appreciating his sense of humor, pun, and fun
in how he chose his drawings' subjects; delighting in the balance, artistry,
and whimsy of the drawings; simply enjoying the beauty of each two-page
spread. I've never encountered a better book about Japanese drawings
than this. It's a treasured piece, one of about 50 books I've stumbled
across over the years that I truly hold dear.
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