Hokusai Katsushika Galleries

Flowers and (or) birds were depicted in more than twenty of Hokusai's (1760-1849) woodblock-printed picture books. He exaggerated both the size of flowers and the size of birds' heads, presumably because his pictures were meant to entertain viewers by presenting familiar objects in an unfamiliar way. Hokusai's use of color ranged from only shades of gray to full color. The six picture books listed below cover this color range. Shades of gray were used for flower and (or) bird pictures in Ryakuga Haya Oshie versus full color in Hokusai Shashin Gafu and a few colors in the other four books. Click on a picture book's title to open it. To see some of Hokusai's paintings click here.