Hokusai’s forgotten works

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Hokusai’s forgotten works

At the British Museum, 103 beautiful drawings, each no larger than a postcard, are on show to the public for the first time in history. They were created by the celebrated Japanese artist Hokusai (1760-1849), who conjured up what he thought the earliest civilisations in China and India could have looked like, as well as scenes from the natural world.

It’s a quirk of fate that these drawings survived. Hokusai had intended for them to be turned into printing blocks for a book, which would have destroyed the illustrations. But the project was abandoned and the images forgotten, until being revealed once more in this new exhibition.

Hokusai: The Great Picture Book of Everything

The British Museum, London / 30 September-30 January / Booking recommended / britishmuseum.org

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