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HOKUSAI Studio	Sketchbook with nine preparatory drawings / figure studies
	Black ink (sumi) on paper. A sketchbook. Size:                          c. 27 x 38 cms (10 1/2" x 15"), per double-page drawing Date:                          1820s - 40s Condition: a few of the (for a sktechbook) usual marks and blemishes, but generally good to very good. ref. no.: # 595027 Price:  € 2,500.00

This highly interesting sketchbook contains numerous figure studies in black ink in the typical style of the Katsushika (Hokusai) school. When studying the brush lines in close detail it becomes obvious that the drawings were created by an artist of enormous artistic talent and craftsmanship. The accurate, firm flow of the brush line shows an artist at work who was secure in the transmission of his ideas to paper, who was able to create exactly what his mind had imagined. Whether theses studies 'only' represent some sort of training, or whether they are the preliminary sketches for published single-sheet prints or illustrated books, has not yet been examined. Though this is always of certain interest to scholars and collectors of such studies, it does, in the end, have no influence on the positive judgement about the artistic accomplishment we are detecting in each of these sketches. Preliminary or preparatory drawings should also be viewed as unique works of art by themselves, unique in the sense that they represent the only works in the process of creating woodblock prints which were executed by the artists' OWN hands, and that only this one sample of them exists; unique in the sense that they best demonstrate the artist's intention to a degree sometimes lost in the finished print; and: if the result in the end is 'great art' we may call such works 'unique' in relation to the artistic accomplishment. Reference to just a few books related to Hokusai and Hokusai-school drawings: Jack Hillier, Hokusai drawings; London, 1966. Theodore Bowie, The drawings of Hokusai; Bloomington, 1964. Ota Museum, Katsushika-ha, Utagawa-ha ('Drawings from the Katsushika & Utagawa schools'); 1987. Stephen Longstreet, The drawings of Hokusai ('Master Draughtsman Series'); Alhambra, Ca., 1969. More reference on Hokusai school drawings and preparatory drawings in general may be found in the 'BIBLIOGRAPHY' section of our online/download catalog, Japanese drawings - part I.

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