1.
Hokusai (crater)
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Hokusai is a rayed impact crater on Mercury, which was discovered in 1991 by ground-based radar observations conducted at Goldstone Observatory. The crater was known as feature B. Its appearance was so dissimilar to other craters that it was once thought to be a shield volcano. However improved radar images by the Arecibo Observatory obtained later in 2000–2005 clearly showed that feature B is a crater with an extensive ray system. The bright appearance of rays in the radio images indicates that the crater is geologically young, fresh impact ejecta has a rough surface, Hokusai is named after Katsushika Hokusai, a Japanese artist and printmaker of the Edo period. The name Hokusai was suggested by radar astronomer John K. Harmon, the crater has a diameter of about 100 km, the rays extend for thousands kilometers, covering much of the northern hemisphere
2.
Edo
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Edo, also romanized as Jedo, Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of Tokyo. It was the seat of power for the Tokugawa shogunate, which ruled Japan from 1603 to 1868, during this period, it grew to become one of the largest cities in the world and home to an urban culture centered on the notion of a floating world. From the establishment of the Tokugawa bakufu headquarters at Edo, the became the de facto capital and center of political power. Edo grew from what had been a small, little-known fishing village in 1457 into the largest metropolis in the world with a population of 1,000,000 by 1721. Edo was repeatedly devastated by fires, with the Great Fire of Meireki in 1657 being the most disastrous, an estimated 100,000 people died in the fire. During the Edo period, there were about 100 fires mostly begun by accident, between 1600 and 1945, Edo/Tokyo was leveled every 25–50 years or so by fire, earthquakes, or war. In 1868, when the shogunate came to an end, the city was renamed Tokyo, the emperor moved his residence to Tokyo, making the city the formal capital of Japan, Keiō4, On the 17th day of the 7th month, Edo was renamed Tokyo. Keiō4, On the 27th day of the 8th month, Keiō4, On the eighth day of the ninth month, the nengō was formally changed from Keiō to Meiji and a general amnesty was granted. Meiji 2, On the 23rd day of the 10th month, ishimaru Sadatsuga was the magistrate of Edo in 1661. During the Edo period, the Shogunate appointed administrators with jurisdiction over the police, and beginning with the rule of Tokugawa Yoshimune), the machi bugyō heard criminal and civil suits, and performed other administrative functions. The city was out as a castle town around Edo Castle. Kyotos character was defined by the Imperial Court, the nobles, its Buddhist temples and its history, Osaka was the countrys commercial center. Areas further from the center were the domain of the chōnin, the area known as Shitamachi, northeast of the castle, was a center of urban culture. The ancient Buddhist temple of Sensō-ji still stands in Asakusa, marking the center of an area of traditional Shitamachi culture, some shops in the streets near the temple have existed continuously in the same location since the Edo period. The Sumida River, then called the Great River, ran along the edge of the city. The shogunates official rice-storage warehouses, other buildings and some of the citys best-known restaurants were located here. The Japan Bridge marked the center of the commercial center. Fishermen, craftsmen and other producers and retailers operated here, shippers managed ships known as tarubune to and from Osaka and other cities, bringing goods into the city or transferring them from sea routes to river barges or land routes such as the Tōkaidō
3.
Tokyo
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Tokyo, officially Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan and one of its 47 prefectures. The Greater Tokyo Area is the most populous area in the world. It is the seat of the Emperor of Japan and the Japanese government, Tokyo is in the Kantō region on the southeastern side of the main island Honshu and includes the Izu Islands and Ogasawara Islands. Formerly known as Edo, it has been the de facto seat of government since 1603 when Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu made the city his headquarters. It officially became the capital after Emperor Meiji moved his seat to the city from the old capital of Kyoto in 1868, Tokyo Metropolis was formed in 1943 from the merger of the former Tokyo Prefecture and the city of Tokyo. The Tokyo metropolitan government administers the 23 Special Wards of Tokyo, the metropolitan government also administers 39 municipalities in the western part of the prefecture and the two outlying island chains. The population of the wards is over 9 million people. The prefecture is part of the worlds most populous metropolitan area with upwards of 37.8 million people, the city hosts 51 of the Fortune Global 500 companies, the highest number of any city in the world. Tokyo ranked third in the International Financial Centres Development IndexEdit, the city is also home to various television networks such as Fuji TV, Tokyo MX, TV Tokyo, TV Asahi, Nippon Television, NHK and the Tokyo Broadcasting System. Tokyo ranked first in the Global Economic Power Index and fourth in the Global Cities Index. The city is considered a world city – as listed by the GaWCs 2008 inventory – and in 2014. In 2015, Tokyo was named the Most Liveable City in the world by the magazine Monocle, the Michelin Guide has awarded Tokyo by far the most Michelin stars of any city in the world. Tokyo ranked first in the world in the Safe Cities Index, the 2016 edition of QS Best Student Cities ranked Tokyo as the 3rd-best city in the world to be a university student. Tokyo hosted the 1964 Summer Olympics, the 1979 G-7 summit, the 1986 G-7 summit, and the 1993 G-7 summit, and will host the 2020 Summer Olympics, Tokyo was originally known as Edo, which means estuary. During the early Meiji period, the city was also called Tōkei, some surviving official English documents use the spelling Tokei. However, this pronunciation is now obsolete, the name Tokyo was first suggested in 1813 in the book Kondō Hisaku, written by Satō Nobuhiro. When Ōkubo Toshimichi proposed the renaming to the government during the Meiji Restoration, according to Oda Kanshi, Tokyo was originally a small fishing village named Edo, in what was formerly part of the old Musashi Province. Edo was first fortified by the Edo clan, in the twelfth century
4.
Ukiyo-e
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The ukiyo-e genre of art flourished in Japan from the 17th through 19th centuries. The term ukiyo-e translates as picture of the floating world, Edo became the seat of government for the military dictatorship in the early 17th century. The merchant class at the bottom of the social order benefitted most from the rapid economic growth. Many indulged in the entertainments of kabuki theatre, courtesans, the term ukiyo came to describe this hedonistic lifestyle. The earliest success was in the 1670s with Moronobus paintings and monochromatic prints of beautiful women, colour in prints came gradually—at first added by hand for special commissions. By the 1740s, artists such as Masanobu used multiple woodblocks to print areas of colour, from the 1760s the success of Harunobus brocade prints led to full-colour production becoming standard, each print made with numerous blocks. Specialists have prized the portraits of beauties and actors by masters such as Kiyonaga, Utamaro, Following the deaths of these two masters, and against the technological and social modernization that followed the Meiji Restoration of 1868, ukiyo-e production went into steep decline. Some ukiyo-e artists specialized in making paintings, but most works were prints, as printing was done by hand, printers were able to achieve effects impractical with machines, such as the blending or gradation of colours on the printing block. Ukiyo-e was central to forming the Wests perception of Japanese art in the late 19th century–especially the landscapes of Hokusai, Prints since the late 20th century have continued in an individualist vein, often made with techniques imported from the West. The Kanō school of painting incorporated features of both, since antiquity, Japanese art had found patrons in the aristocracy, military governments, and religious authorities. Later works appeared by and for townspeople, including inexpensive monochromatic paintings of female beauties and scenes of the theatre and pleasure districts, the hand-produced nature of these shikomi-e limited the scale of their production, a limit that was soon overcome by genres that turned to mass-produced woodblock printing. During a prolonged period of war in the 16th century. In the early 17th century Tokugawa Ieyasu unified the country and was appointed Shogun with supreme power over Japan and he consolidated his government in the village of Edo, and required the territorial lords to assemble there in alternate years with their entourages. The demands of the growing capital drew many male labourers from the country, the village grew during the Edo period from a population of 1800 to over a million in the 19th century. The centralized shogunate put an end to the power of the machishū and divided the population into four classes, with the ruling samurai class at the top. The experience of the quarters was open to those of sufficient wealth, manners. Woodblock printing in Japan traces back to the Hyakumantō Darani in 770 CE, until the 17th century such printing was reserved for Buddhist seals and images. Movable type appeared around 1600, but as the Japanese writing system required about 100,000 type pieces, in Saga Domain, calligrapher Honami Kōetsu and publisher Suminokura Soan combined printed text and images in an adaptation of The Tales of Ise and other works of literature
5.
Woodblock printing in Japan
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Woodblock printing in Japan is a technique best known for its use in the ukiyo-e artistic genre of single sheets, but it was also used for printing books in the same period. Woodblock printing had been used in China for centuries to print books, long before the advent of movable type, but was widely adopted in Japan during the Edo period. Although similar to woodcut in Western printmaking in some regards, the technique differs in that it uses water-based inks—as opposed to western woodcut. The Japanese water-based inks provide a range of vivid colors, glazes. Woodblock-printed books from Chinese Buddhist temples were seen in Japan as early as the eighth century, in 764 the Empress Kōken commissioned one million small wooden pagodas, each containing a small woodblock scroll printed with a Buddhist text. These were distributed to temples around the country as thanksgiving for the suppression of the Emi Rebellion of 764 and these are the earliest examples of woodblock printing known, or documented, from Japan. By the eleventh century, Buddhist temples in Japan produced printed books of sutras, mandalas, for centuries, printing was mainly restricted to the Buddhist sphere, as it was too expensive for mass production, and did not have a receptive, literate public as a market. However, an important set of fans of the late Heian period, containing painted images and Buddhist sutras, the first secular book was printed in Japan in 1591. This was the Setsuyō-shū, a two-volume Chinese-Japanese dictionary, four years later, Tokugawa Ieyasu, even before becoming shogun, effected the creation of the first native moveable type, using wooden type-pieces rather than metal. He oversaw the creation of 100,000 type-pieces, which were used to print a number of political and historical texts, as shogun, Ieyasu promoted literacy and learning, contributing to the emergence of an educated urban public. Printing was not dominated by the shogunate at this point, however, private printers appeared in Kyoto at the beginning of the 17th century, and Toyotomi Hideyori, Ieyasus primary political opponent, aided in the development and spread of the medium as well. An edition of the Confucian Analects was printed in 1598, using a Korean moveable type printing press and this document is the oldest work of Japanese moveable type printing extant today. Despite the appeal of moveable type, however, craftsmen soon decided that the script style of Japanese writings was better reproduced using woodblocks. By 1640 woodblocks were once used for nearly all purposes. The medium quickly gained popularity, and was used to produce affordable prints as well as books, the great pioneers in applying this method to the creation of artistic books, and in preceding mass production for general consumption, were Honami Kōetsu and Suminokura Soan. The content of these varied widely, including travel guides, advice manuals, kibyōshi, sharebon, art books. Often, within a genre, such as the jōruri theatre scripts. For example, one persons personal calligraphic style was adopted as the style for printing plays
6.
Japanese name
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Japanese names in modern times usually consist of a family name, followed by a given name. More than one name is not generally used. Japanese names are written in kanji, which are characters usually Chinese in origin. The kanji for a name may have a variety of possible Japanese pronunciations, Names written in hiragana or katakana are phonetic renderings, and so lack the visual meaning of names expressed in the logographic kanji. Japanese family names are extremely varied, according to estimates, there are over 100,000 different surnames in use today in Japan, the three most common family names in Japan are Satō, Suzuki, and Takahashi. Many Japanese family names derive from features of the landscape, for example, Ishikawa means stone river, Yamamoto means the base of the mountain. While family names follow relatively consistent rules, given names are more diverse in pronunciation. Unusual pronunciations have especially become common, with this trend having increased significantly since the 1990s, male names often end in -rō or -ta, or contain ichi, kazu, ji, or dai while female names often end in -ko or -mi. Other popular endings for female names include -ka and -na, the majority of Japanese people have one surname and one given name with no other names, except for the Japanese imperial family, whose members bear no surname. The family name – myōji, uji or sei – precedes the given name, the given name may be referred to as the lower name because, in vertically written Japanese, the given name appears under the family name. People with mixed Japanese and foreign parentage may have middle names, historically, myōji, uji and sei had different meanings. Sei was originally the patrilineal surname which is why up till now it has granted only by the emperor as a title of male rank. The lower form of the name sei being tei which is a name in Japanese men. Although there was an ancestor in ancient Japan from whom the name Sei originally came. There were relatively few sei, and most of the noble clans trace their lineage either directly to these sei or to the courtiers of these sei. Uji was another name used to designate patrilineal descent, but later merged with myōji around the same time, myōji was, simply, what a family chooses to call itself, as opposed to the sei granted by the emperor. While it was passed on patrilineally in male ancestors including in male ancestors called haku, multiple Japanese characters have the same pronunciations, so several Japanese names have multiple meanings. A particular kanji itself can have multiple meanings and pronunciations, in some names, Japanese characters phonetically spell a name and have no intended meaning behind them
7.
Printmaking
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Printmaking is the process of making artworks by printing, normally on paper. Printmaking normally covers only the process of creating prints that have an element of originality, except in the case of monotyping, the process is capable of producing multiples of the same piece, which is called a print. Each print produced is not considered a copy but rather is considered an original, a print may be known as an impression. Printmaking is not chosen only for its ability to multiple impressions. Prints are created by transferring ink from a matrix or through a screen to a sheet of paper or other material. Screens made of silk or synthetic fabrics are used for the screenprinting process, other types of matrix substrates and related processes are discussed below. Multiple impressions printed from the matrix form an edition. Prints may also be printed in book form, such as illustrated books or artists books, Printmaking techniques are generally divided into the following basic categories, Relief, where ink is applied to the original surface of the matrix. Relief techniques include woodcut or woodblock as the Asian forms are known, wood engraving. Intaglio, where ink is applied beneath the surface of the matrix. Intaglio techniques include engraving, etching, mezzotint, aquatint, planographic, where the matrix retains its original surface, but is specially prepared and/or inked to allow for the transfer of the image. Planographic techniques include lithography, monotyping, and digital techniques, stencil, where ink or paint is pressed through a prepared screen, including screenprinting and pochoir. Other types of printmaking techniques outside these groups include collagraphy and viscosity printing, collagraphy is a printmaking technique in which textured material is adhered to the printing matrix. This texture is transferred to the paper during the printing process, Contemporary printmaking may include digital printing, photographic mediums, or a combination of digital, photographic, and traditional processes. Many of these techniques can also be combined, especially within the same family, for example, Rembrandts prints are usually referred to as etchings for convenience, but very often include work in engraving and drypoint as well, and sometimes have no etching at all. Woodcut, a type of print, is the earliest printmaking technique. It was probably first developed as a means of printing patterns on cloth, woodcuts of images on paper developed around 1400 in Japan, and slightly later in Europe. These are the two areas where woodcut has been most extensively used purely as a process for making images without text, the artist draws a design on a plank of wood, or on paper which is transferred to the wood
8.
Edo period
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The Edo period or Tokugawa period is the period between 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when Japanese society was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the countrys 300 regional daimyō. The period was characterized by growth, strict social order, isolationist foreign policies. The shogunate was established in Edo on March 24,1603. The period came to an end with the Meiji Restoration on May 3,1868, instrumental in the rise of the new bakufu was Tokugawa Ieyasu, the main beneficiary of the achievements of Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Already powerful, Ieyasu profited by his transfer to the rich Kantō area, after Hideyoshis death, Ieyasu moved quickly to seize control from the Toyotomi family. Ieyasus victory over the western daimyōs at the Battle of Sekigahara gave him control of all Japan. He rapidly abolished numerous enemy daimyō houses, reduced others, such as that of the Toyotomi, Ieyasu still failed to achieve complete control of the western daimyōs, but his assumption of the title of shogun helped consolidate the alliance system. After further strengthening his base, Ieyasu installed his son Hidetada as shogun. The Toyotomi were still a significant threat, and Ieyasu devoted the next decade to their eradication, in 1615, the Tokugawa army destroyed the Toyotomi stronghold at Osaka. The Tokugawa period brought 250 years of stability to Japan, the political system evolved into what historians call bakuhan, a combination of the terms bakufu and han to describe the government and society of the period. In the bakuhan, the shogun had national authority and the daimyōs had regional authority and this represented a new unity in the feudal structure, which featured an increasingly large bureaucracy to administer the mixture of centralized and decentralized authorities. The feudal hierarchy was completed by the classes of daimyō. Closest to the Tokugawa house were the shinpan, or related houses and they were twenty-three daimyōs on the borders of Tokugawa lands, all directly related to Ieyasu. The shinpan held mostly honorary titles and advisory posts in the bakufu, the second class of the hierarchy were the fudai, or house daimyōs, rewarded with lands close to the Tokugawa holdings for their faithful service. By the 18th century,145 fudai controlled such smaller han, members of the fudai class staffed most of the major bakufu offices. Ninety-seven han formed the group, the tozama, former opponents or new allies. The tozama were located mostly on the peripheries of the archipelago, because the tozama were least trusted of the daimyō, they were the most cautiously managed and generously treated, although they were excluded from central government positions. The Tokugawa not only consolidated their control over a reunified Japan, they also had unprecedented power over the emperor, the court, all daimyōs and the religious orders
9.
Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji
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Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji is a series of landscape prints by the Japanese ukiyo-e artist Hokusai. The series depicts Mount Fuji from different locations and in various seasons, the series was produced from c. 1830 to 1832, when Hokusai was in his seventies and at the height of his career, and published by Nishimura Yohachi. Among the prints are three of Hokusais most famous, Under the Wave off Kanagawa, South Wind, Clear Sky, the series has been described as the artists indisputable colour-print masterpiece. Mount Fuji is a subject for Japanese art due to its cultural. This belief can be traced to The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, the most famous single image from the series is widely known in English as The Great Wave off Kanagawa, although a more literal translation might be, Off Kanagawa, the back of a wave. It depicts three boats being threatened by a wave while Mount Fuji rises in the background. While generally assumed to be a tsunami, the wave was intended to simply be a large ocean wave. Each of the images was made through a process whereby an image drawn on paper was used to guide the carving of a wood block and this block was then covered with ink and applied to paper to create the image. The complexity of Hokusais images includes the range of colors he used. These images are of modern facsimile prints made using the same techniques, a collection of Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji prints contained in the wellness spa of the Costa Concordia was lost during the collision of the ship on January 13,2012. The Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji prints were displayed at the Museum of Fine Arts, Hokusai, Genius of the Japanese Ukiyo-e. Hokusai, One Hundred Views of Mt. Fuji, Hokusai,36 Views of Mount Fuji exhibition at the Freer and Sackler Galleries Hokusais 36 Views of Mount Fuji A short biography of Hokusai including a section on the 36 Views of Mt. Fuji series. Jim Breens ukiyo-e page on Hokusai and the 36 Views 葛飾北斎の富士山・富嶽三十六景 Educational Audio Tour of The Great Wave
10.
The Great Wave off Kanagawa
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The Great Wave off Kanagawa, also known as The Great Wave or simply The Wave, is a woodblock print by the Japanese ukiyo-e artist Hokusai. It was published sometime between 1829 and 1833 in the late Edo period as the first print in Hokusais series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji and it is Hokusais most famous work, and one of the most recognizable works of Japanese art in the world. The image depicts an enormous wave threatening boats off the coast of the prefecture of Kanagawa, while sometimes assumed to be a tsunami, the wave is more likely to be a large rogue wave. As in all the prints in the series, it depicts the area around Mount Fuji under particular conditions, Hokusai began painting when he was six years old and at twelve, his father sent him to work at a booksellers. At sixteen, he was apprenticed as an engraver and spent three years learning the trade, at the same time he began to produce his own illustrations. At eighteen he was accepted as an apprentice to Katsukawa Shunshō, in 1804 he became famous as an artist when, during a festival in Tokyo, he completed a 240m² painting of a Buddhist monk named Daruma. In 1814, he published the first of fifteen volumes of sketches entitled Manga and his Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, from which the Great Wave comes, was produced from around c. 1830. From the sixteenth century fantastic depictions of waves crashing on rocky shores were painted on folding screens known as rough seas screens, Hokusai drew many waves throughout his career, the genesis of the Great Wave can be traced back over thirty years. Kōkans A View of Seven-League Beach was executed in middle of 1796, in both precursor works, the subjects are in the midst of a storm, beneath a great wave that threatens to devour them. Their rigidity and verticality evoke the shape of a mountain, while in the Great Wave the wave stands out because it is more active, dynamic, and aggressive. The earlier images are marked by the perspective traditionally used in Japanese painting. The Great Wave, on the hand, is depicted in a more western perspective. In the earlier prints the horizon is in the middle, whereas in the Great Wave the horizon is so low that it forces the viewers eye to the center of the action. In the first two, there is a boat on the crest of the wave, as if it had managed to escape. Hokusai eliminated this element for the Great Wave, because it interfered with the dynamic of the curve or to make the more dramatic. The two first prints have a composition, lacking consistency, whereas the Great Wave only has two important masses, the wave itself, and the vanishing point beneath the wave. The wave shows the level of control that Hokusai had reached, the image, although simple in its design is, however, the result of a long process, a methodical reflection. This print is a yoko-e, that is, a landscape format produced to the ōban size, the composition comprises three main elements, the sea whipped up by a storm, three boats and a mountain
11.
Mount Fuji
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Mount Fuji, located on Honshu Island, is the highest mountain in Japan at 3,776.24 m. An active stratovolcano that last erupted in 1707–08, Mount Fuji lies about 100 kilometres south-west of Tokyo, Mount Fuji is one of Japans Three Holy Mountains along with Mount Tate and Mount Haku. It is also a Special Place of Scenic Beauty and one of Japans Historic Sites and it was added to the World Heritage List as a Cultural Site on June 22,2013. Per UNESCO, Mount Fuji has inspired artists and poets and been the object of pilgrimage for centuries, UNESCO recognizes 25 sites of cultural interest within the Mt. Fuji locality. These 25 locations include the mountain itself, Fujisan, in Shinto mythology, Kuninotokotachi is one of the two gods born from something like a reed that arose from the soil when the earth was chaotic. He is known by mythology to reside on top of Mount Fuji, Kuninotokotachi is described as a hitorigami and genderless in Kojiki, while as a male god in Nihon Shoki. Yoshida Kanetomo, the founder of the Yoshida Shintō sect, identified Kuninotokotachi with Amenominakanushi, the current kanji for Mount Fuji, 富 and 士, mean wealth or abundant and a man with a certain status respectively. The origin of the name Fuji is unclear, having no recording of it being first called by this name. A text of the 10th century, Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, says that the name came from immortal, an early folk etymology claims that Fuji came from 不二, meaning without equal or nonpareil. Another claims that it came from 不尽, meaning neverending, a Japanese classical scholar in the Edo era, Hirata Atsutane, speculated that the name is from a word meaning, a mountain standing up shapely as an ear of a rice plant. It is also pointed that huchi means an old woman and ape is the word for fire, research on the distribution of place names that include fuji as a part also suggest the origin of the word fuji is in the Yamato language rather than Ainu. A Japanese toponymist Kanji Kagami argued that the name has the root as wisteria and rainbow. In English, the mountain is known as Mount Fuji, some sources refer to it as Fuji-san, Fujiyama or, redundantly, Mt. Fujiyama. Japanese speakers refer to the mountain as Fuji-san and this san is not the honorific suffix used with peoples names, such as Watanabe-san, but the Sino-Japanese reading of the character yama used in Sino-Japanese compounds. In Nihon-shiki and Kunrei-shiki romanization, the name is transliterated as Huzi, among the most renowned works are Hokusais 36 Views of Mount Fuji and his One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji, as well as Utagawa Hiroshiges similarly-titled 36 Views of Mount Fuji. The mountain is mentioned in Japanese literature throughout the ages and is the subject of many poems and it is thought that the first recorded ascent was in 663 by an anonymous monk. The summit has been thought of as sacred since ancient times and was forbidden to women until the Meiji Era, ancient samurai used the base of the mountain as a remote training area, near the present-day town of Gotemba. The shogun Minamoto no Yoritomo held yabusame in the area in the early Kamakura period, the first ascent by a foreigner was by Sir Rutherford Alcock in September 1868, from the foot of the mountain to the top in eight hours and three hours for the descent
12.
Fine Wind, Clear Morning
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The work has been described as one of the simplest and at the same time one of the most outstanding of all Japanese prints. In early autumn when, as the title specifies, the wind is southerly and the sky is clear, hokusai captures this moment with compositional abstraction but meteorological specificity, especially when compared to the rest of the series. The three shades of deepening blue of the sky mirror the three hues of the mountain, the lingering remnants of snow at the peak of the mountain and dark shadows encompassing the forest at its base place it very precisely in time. Mount Fujis solidly symmetrical shape on the half of the image is balanced by the delicate clouds to the left. The earliest impressions appear faded when compared to the usually seen. The original prints have a deliberately uneven blue sky, which increases the skys brightness, the peak is brought forward with a halo of Prussian blue. Subsequent prints have an strong, even tone and the printer added a new block. Later prints also typically employ a strong benigara pigment, which lent the painting its name of Red Fuji. The green block colour was recut, lowering the meeting point between forest and mountain slope, an alternative impression of the print was made with a completely different colour-scheme. In this version the clouds are only just visible in the upper portion. The sky is a mostly rendered in a pale blue with a thin strip of grey at the top. This print and Hokusais other masterpiece from his Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji series, both are superb examples of the Japanese art of Ukiyo-e, pictures of the floating world. The saturated colors and stylized forms in such prints helped inspire the Impressionist and Post-impressionist movements decades later, prints can be found in museums worldwide including the British Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Indianapolis Museum of Art
13.
Japanese calendar
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Japanese calendar types have included a range of official and unofficial systems. At present, Japan uses the Gregorian calendar together with year designations stating the year of the reign of the current Emperor, the lunisolar Chinese calendar was introduced to Japan via Korea in the middle of the sixth century. After that, Japan calculated its calendar using various Chinese calendar procedures, but in 1873, as part of Japans Meiji period modernization, a calendar based on the solar Gregorian calendar was introduced. In Japan today, the old Chinese calendar is virtually ignored, celebrations of the Lunar New Year are thus limited to Chinese, Japan has had more than one system for designating years. Including The Chinese sexagenary cycle was introduced into Japan. It was often used together with era names, as in the 1729 Ise calendar shown above, now, though, the cycle is seldom used except around New Years. The era name system was introduced from China, and has been in continuous use since AD701. Each Emperors reign begins a new era, before 1868 era names were also declared for other reasons. Nengō are the means of dating years in Japan. It is also in use in private and personal business. The Japanese imperial year or kigen 紀元 is based on the date of the founding of Japan by Emperor Jimmu in 660 BC. It was first used in the calendar in 1873. However, it never replaced era names, and since World War II has been abandoned, the Western Common Era system has gradually come into common use since the Meiji period. Now, most people know it, as well as era names, the official dating system known as nengō 年号, strictly speaking, gengō 元号, has been in use since the late 7th century. Years are numbered within eras, which are named by the reigning Emperor, the nengō system remains in wide use, especially on official documents and government forms. The imperial year system was used from 1872 to the Second World War, Imperial year 1 was the year when the legendary Emperor Jimmu founded Japan –660 BC according to the Gregorian Calendar. Usage of kōki dating can be a nationalist signal, pointing out that the history of Japans imperial family is longer than that of Christianity, kōki 2600 was a special year. The 1940 Summer Olympics and Tokyo Expo were planned as anniversary events, the Japanese naval Zero Fighter was named after this year
14.
Artisan
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Artisans practice a craft and may through experience and aptitude reach the expressive levels of an artist. The adjective artisanal is sometimes used in describing hand-processing in what is viewed as an industrial process. Thus, artisanal is sometimes used in marketing and advertising as a word to describe or imply some relation with the crafting of handmade food products, such as bread. Many of these have traditionally been handmade, rural or pastoral goods but are now commonly made on a larger scale with automated mechanization in factories. Artisans were the dominant producers of products prior to the Industrial Revolution. In ancient Greece, artisans were drawn to agoras and often built workshops nearby, during the Middle Ages, the term artisan was applied to those who made things or provided services. It did not apply to unskilled manual labourers, Artisans were divided into two distinct groups, those who operated their own businesses and those who did not. Those who owned their businesses were called masters, while the latter were the journeymen, one misunderstanding many people have about this social group is that they picture them as workers in the modern sense, employed by someone. The most influential group among the artisans were the masters, the business owners, the owners enjoyed a higher social status in their communities. Shokunin is a Japanese word for artisan or craftsman, which implies a pride in ones own work. In the words of shokunin Tashio Odate, Shokunin means not only having technical skill, a social obligation to work his best for the general welfare of the people, obligation both material and spiritual. Applied art Artist Arts and Crafts movement Caste — Tarkhan Guild Handicraft The dictionary definition of artisan at Wiktionary History of Artisans
15.
Concubinage
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The woman in such a relationship is referred to as a concubine. The prevalence of concubinage and the status of rights and expectations of a concubine have varied between cultures as well as the rights of children of a concubine. Whatever the status and rights of the concubine, they were inferior to those of the wife. Historically, concubinage was frequently entered into voluntarily as it provided a measure of security for the woman involved. Involuntary or servile concubinage sometimes involved sexual slavery of one member of the relationship, nevertheless, sexual relations outside marriage were not uncommon, especially among royalty and nobility, and the woman in such relationships was commonly described as a mistress. However, the children of such relationships were counted as illegitimate and were barred from inheriting the title or estates. While various forms of sexual relationships and co-habitation short of marriage have become increasingly common in the Western world. The terms concubinage and concubine are used primarily when referring to non-marital partnerships of earlier eras. In modern usage, a domestic relationship is commonly referred to as co-habitation. Concubinage was highly popular before early 20th century all over Asia, the main function of concubinage was producing additional heirs, as well as bring males pleasure. Children of concubines had lower rights in account to inheritance, which was regulated by Dishu system, after that, even concubinage has been legally banned, the relationship between mistresses and their men are highly affected by it. In China, successful men often had concubines until the practice was outlawed after the Communist Party of China came to power in 1949, the standard Chinese term translated as concubine was qiè 妾, a term used since ancient times, which means female slave. Concubines resembled wives in that they were recognized sexual partners of a family member and were expected to bear children from him. Unofficial concubines, are of lower status, and children of her are considered illegitimate, in English the term concubine is also used for what the Chinese refer to as pínfēi consorts of emperors, some of very high rank. In premodern China, it was illegal and socially disreputable for a man to have more than one wife at a time, but he could have concubines. At first a man could have as many concubines as he could afford, however, from the Eastern Han onward, the higher ranking and the more noble an identity a man possessed, the more concubines he was permitted to have. A concubines treatment and situation were highly variable and were influenced by the status of the male to whom she was engaged. In the Book of Rites chapter on “The Pattern of the Family” it says, “If there were betrothal rites, she became a wife, and if she went without these, Concubines could be taken without any of the ceremonies used in marriages
16.
Lending library
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A lending library is a library from which books and other media are lent out. The earliest reference to or use of the lending library yet located in English correspondence dates from ca. Most liberall and lending, referring to the books of a type of library. Xii.475 of Cambridge are Lending-libraries, that is, he that is qualified may borrow out of it any book he wants. This definition is applicable in the United States before 1850. It may also refer to a library or other institution that sends materials on request to another library, leeds Library a private subscription or proprietary library, is also referred to as a public library and a circulating library, illustrating the need for a taxonomy that is not confusing. The major classifications, based on ownership are endowed libraries, institutional libraries, public libraries, and subscription libraries. Without tax from the community a library may be created with a gift or endowment, by subscription, private libraries are not covered by Kelly due to individual or small group ownership and his focus on the public aspect of these institutions. Frequently the books were chained, similar to those in the Francis Trigge Chained Library, early parish church libraries were stated to be for the use of local layman and clergy, but the books were not in English, were largely in Latin, and exclusively theological in character. Though the collections were mainly religious, the collection extended to literature and he also lobbied for public financing, and promoted the circulation of books so that the inhabitants of the parish could take them home. Some contemporary churches such as St James Church, Sydney maintain lending libraries on theological, parochial libraries were defined by Kelly to distinguish them from parish church libraries, whose books could be used by the locals and were often chained to desks. Parochial libraries instead were restricted to the use of parochial authorities, the Church of England after the Restoration wished to reform the ministry of the church by investing in the learning and development of their pastoral care and teaching. Building libraries in poor benefices and isolated ones was part of initiative. In Leicester, the library was looked upon by townsfolk with civic pride, proclaiming that the library would bring fame, honor, and renown to the Corporation and place it was located. Bristol, Leicester and Manchester libraries all chained their books to the press or desk for security purposes. The specialized libraries were mainly medical libraries which early on included chemistry and botany, since there were few professional scientists before 1850, people interested in science relied mainly on general circulating libraries, rather than institutional libraries to meet their needs. Social libraries peaked in significance by the century, and all their many forms have been the object of intense research in North America. These libraries were often referred to as public libraries during the nineteenth century and this appellation over time came to describe tax-supported, publicly administered libraries open to all regardless of class, race or age for free on an equal basis, at least in theory
17.
Kabuki
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Kabuki is a classical Japanese dance-drama. Kabuki theatre is known for the stylization of its drama and for the elaborate make-up worn by some of its performers, the individual kanji, from left to right, mean sing, dance, and skill. Kabuki is therefore sometimes translated as the art of singing and dancing and these are, however, ateji characters which do not reflect actual etymology. The kanji of skill generally refers to a performer in kabuki theatre, since the word kabuki is believed to derive from the verb kabuku, meaning to lean or to be out of the ordinary, kabuki can be interpreted as avant-garde or bizarre theatre. The expression kabukimono referred originally to those who were dressed and swaggered on a street. The history of kabuki began in 1603 when Izumo no Okuni, possibly a miko of Izumo-taisha and it originated in the 17th century. Japan was under the control of the Tokugawa shogunate, enforced by Tokugawa Ieyasu, the name of the Edo period derives from the relocation of the Tokugawa regime from its former home in Kyoto to the city of Edo, present-day Tokyo. Female performers played both men and women in comic playlets about ordinary life, the style was immediately popular, and Okuni was asked to perform before the Imperial Court. In the wake of success, rival troupes quickly formed. For this reason, kabuki was also called 遊女歌舞妓 during this period, Kabuki became a common form of entertainment in the ukiyo, or Yoshiwara, the registered red-light district in Edo. A diverse crowd gathered under one roof, something that happened nowhere else in the city, Kabuki theaters were a place to see and be seen as they featured the latest fashion trends and current events. The stage provided good entertainment with exciting new music, patterns, clothing, performances went from morning until sunset. The teahouses surrounding or connected to the theater provided meals, refreshments, the area around the theatres was lush with shops selling kabuki souvenirs. Kabuki, in a sense, initiated pop culture in Japan, the shogunate was never partial to kabuki and all the mischief it brought, particularly the variety of the social classes which mixed at kabuki performances. Women’s kabuki, called onna-kabuki, was banned in 1629 for being too erotic, following onna-kabuki, young boys performed in wakashū-kabuki, but since they too were eligible for prostitution, the shogun government soon banned wakashū-kabuki as well. Kabuki switched to male actors, called yaro-kabuki, in the mid-1600s. Male actors played both female and male characters, the theatre remained popular, and remained a focus of urban lifestyle until modern times. The modern all-male kabuki, known as yarō-kabuki, was established during these decades, after women were banned from performing, cross-dressed male actors, known as onnagata or oyama, took over
18.
Surimono
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Surimono are a genre of Japanese woodblock print. They were privately commissioned for special occasions such as the New Year and they were most popular from the 1790s to the 1830s, and many leading artists produced them. In most cases Surimono were commissioned by poetry societies to illustrate the poem in a poetry contest judged by the master of the society. Such prints generally had a format, often c.205 ×185 mm. Kabuki actors also commissioned surimono prints to commemorate important events in their careers, such as changes of name, ukiyo-e Woodblock printing Woodcut Frank Lloyd Wright was a collector of Surimono. Public Spectacles, Personal Pleasures, four centuries of Japanese prints from a Cincinnati collection, Surimono on the website of the Art, Design & Architecture Museum
19.
Buddhism
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Buddhism is a religion and dharma that encompasses a variety of traditions, beliefs and spiritual practices largely based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. Buddhism originated in India sometime between the 6th and 4th centuries BCE, from where it spread through much of Asia, two major extant branches of Buddhism are generally recognized by scholars, Theravada and Mahayana. Buddhism is the worlds fourth-largest religion, with over 500 million followers or 7% of the global population, Buddhist schools vary on the exact nature of the path to liberation, the importance and canonicity of various teachings and scriptures, and especially their respective practices. In Theravada the ultimate goal is the attainment of the state of Nirvana, achieved by practicing the Noble Eightfold Path, thus escaping what is seen as a cycle of suffering. Theravada has a following in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia. Mahayana, which includes the traditions of Pure Land, Zen, Nichiren Buddhism, Shingon, rather than Nirvana, Mahayana instead aspires to Buddhahood via the bodhisattva path, a state wherein one remains in the cycle of rebirth to help other beings reach awakening. Vajrayana, a body of teachings attributed to Indian siddhas, may be viewed as a branch or merely a part of Mahayana. Tibetan Buddhism, which preserves the Vajrayana teachings of eighth century India, is practiced in regions surrounding the Himalayas, Tibetan Buddhism aspires to Buddhahood or rainbow body. Buddhism is an Indian religion attributed to the teachings of Buddha, the details of Buddhas life are mentioned in many early Buddhist texts but are inconsistent, his social background and life details are difficult to prove, the precise dates uncertain. Some hagiographic legends state that his father was a king named Suddhodana, his mother queen Maya, and he was born in Lumbini gardens. Some of the stories about Buddha, his life, his teachings, Buddha was moved by the innate suffering of humanity. He meditated on this alone for a period of time, in various ways including asceticism, on the nature of suffering. He famously sat in meditation under a Ficus religiosa tree now called the Bodhi Tree in the town of Bodh Gaya in Gangetic plains region of South Asia. He reached enlightenment, discovering what Buddhists call the Middle Way, as an enlightened being, he attracted followers and founded a Sangha. Now, as the Buddha, he spent the rest of his teaching the Dharma he had discovered. Dukkha is a concept of Buddhism and part of its Four Noble Truths doctrine. It can be translated as incapable of satisfying, the unsatisfactory nature, the Four Truths express the basic orientation of Buddhism, we crave and cling to impermanent states and things, which is dukkha, incapable of satisfying and painful. This keeps us caught in saṃsāra, the cycle of repeated rebirth, dukkha
20.
Bodhidharma
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Bodhidharma was a Buddhist monk who lived during the 5th or 6th century. He is traditionally credited as the transmitter of Chan Buddhism to China, according to Chinese legend, he also began the physical training of the monks of Shaolin Monastery that led to the creation of Shaolin Kung Fu. In Japan, he is known as Daruma, little contemporary biographical information on Bodhidharma is extant, and subsequent accounts became layered with legend. Throughout Buddhist art, Bodhidharma is depicted as an ill-tempered, profusely-bearded, wide-eyed non-Chinese person and he is referred as The Blue-Eyed Barbarian in Chan texts. Aside from the Chinese accounts, several popular traditions also exist regarding Bodhidharmas origins, the accounts also differ on the date of his arrival, with one early account claiming that he arrived during the Liu Song dynasty and later accounts dating his arrival to the Liang dynasty. Bodhidharma was primarily active in the territory of the Northern Wei, modern scholarship dates him to about the early 5th century. Bodhidharmas teachings and practice centered on meditation and the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra, the Anthology of the Patriarchal Hall identifies Bodhidharma as the 28th Patriarch of Buddhism in an uninterrupted line that extends all the way back to the Gautama Buddha himself. There are two known extant accounts written by contemporaries of Bodhidharma, according to these sources, Bodhidharma came from the Western regions, and was either a Persian Central Asian or a South Indian the third son of a great Indian king. Later sources draw on these two sources, adding additional details, including a change to being descendent from a Brahmin king, which accords with the reign of the Pallavas, who were Brahmins. Sometimes it was used generally to refer to other regions to the west of China as well. The earliest text mentioning Bodhidharma is The Record of the Buddhist Monasteries of Luoyang which was compiled in 547 by Yáng Xuànzhī, yang gave the following account, At that time there was a monk of the Western Region named Bodhidharma, a Persian Central Asian. He traveled from the borderlands to China. He exclaimed, Truly this is the work of spirits and he said, I am 150 years old, and I have passed through numerous countries. There is virtually no country I have not visited, even the distant Buddha-realms lack this. He chanted homage and placed his palms together in salutation for days on end, the second account was written by Tánlín. He was the son of a great Indian king. Although Tánlín has traditionally been considered a disciple of Bodhidharma, it is likely that he was a student of Huìkě. Tanlins preface has also preserved in Jingjues Lengjie Shizi ji Chronicle of the Laṅkāvatāra Masters
21.
Tokugawa Ienari
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Tokugawa Ienari, 徳川 家斉 was the eleventh and longest-serving shogun of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan who held office from 1787 to 1837. He was a great-grandson of the eighth shogun Tokugawa Yoshimune through his son Munetada, head of the Hitotsubashi branch of the family, Ienari died at 1841 and given buddhist name Bunkyouin and buried in Kanei-ji. The significance of this alliance was dramatically enhanced when, in 1781 and this meant that when Toyochiyo became Shogun Ienari in 1786, Shigehide was set to become the father-in-law of the shogun. The marriage was completed in 1789, after which Tadako became formally known as Midaidokoro Sadako, protocol required that she be adopted into a court family, and the Konoe family agreed to take her in but this was a mere formality. 1788, Riots in rice shops in Edo and Osaka, march 6–11,1788, Great Fire of Kyoto. The emperor and his court flee the fire, and the Imperial Palace is destroyed, no other re-construction is permitted until a new palace is completed. This fire was considered a major event, the Dutch VOC Opperhoofd in Dejima noted in his official record book that people are considering it to be a great and extraordinary heavenly portent. February 28,1793, Collapse of the peak of Mount Unzen, march 17,1793, Eruption of Mt. Biwas-no-kubi April 15,1793, The Shimabara earthquake. May 10,1793, Eruption of Mt. Miyama, ienaris time in office was marked by an era of pleasure, excess, and corruption, which ended in the disastrous Tenpō Famine of 1832–1837, in which thousands are known to have perished. The years in which Ienari was shogun are more specifically identified by more than one era name or nengō, tenmei Kansei Kyōwa Bunka Bunsei Tenpō Matsudaira Sadanobu Hall, John Whitney and Marius Jansen. Early Modern Japan, The Cambridge History of Japan, ISBN 978-0-521-22355-3, OCLC62064695 Screech, Timon. Secret Memoirs of the Shoguns, Isaac Titsingh and Japan, 1779–1822, nihon Ōdai Ichiran, ou, Annales des empereurs du Japon. Paris, Royal Asiatic Society, Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain, politics in the Tokugawa bakufu, 1600–1843
22.
Takizawa Bakin
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Kyokutei Bakin was a late Japanese Edo period gesaku author best known for works such as Nansō Satomi Hakkenden and Chinsetsu Yumiharizuki. Both are outstanding examples of nineteenth-century yomihon, or books for reading, later in life he took the pen name Toku. Modern scholarship generally refers to him as Kyokutei Bakin, or just as Bakin, born in Edo on 4 July 1767, Bakin was the fifth son of Omon and Okiyoshi. His father, Okiyoshi, was a samurai in the service of one of the Shoguns retainers, two of his older brothers died in infancy, while the other two, Rabun and Keichū, played pivotal roles in Bakins life. He had two sisters, Ohisa, born in 1771, and Okiku, born in 1774. In his diaries, Bakin wrote that his father, a drinker, was devoted to scholarship and the classics. He died in 1775, when Bakin was only nine years old, Bakins family stipend was soon reduced by half, and in December of the following year, Rabun gave up his service to the Matsudaira clan in favor of living as a rōnin. Bakin and his family were forced into a smaller dwelling as a result. Eventually Rabun received a new post, and in 1778 Bakins mother pretended to be sick in order to move in with him, Bakin had been placed in service of the Matsudaira lords grandson, but was treated cruelly and ran away when only 14. He left the following haiku as a note explaining his reasons for leaving, the Eight Dog Chronicles took 28 years to complete, and Bakin grew blind and lost his wife and son before he completed it. Comprising 106 volumes, it is one of the worlds longest novels, the final parts of the work were dictated to his daughter-in-law. Although he was born of lower birth, Bakin renounced his status to become a writer. His works center on themes, including loyalty and family honor, as well as Confucianism, bushido. Excerpts translated by Chris Drake are included in Early Modern Japanese Literature, An Anthology, 1600-1900, the Eight Dog Chronicles has been adapted many times in, for example, the anime OVA The Hakkenden. His Chinsetsu Yumiharizuki was adapted for the stage by Yukio Mishima. A series of ukiyo-e containing 50 pictures depicting characters from Nansō Satomi Hakkenden and these prints were published in the early 1850s by Tsutaya Kichizo. Takizawa made the Japanese version of Haoqiu zhuan, titled Kyōkakuden, media related to Kyokutei Bakin at Wikimedia Commons EB Bio
23.
Hokusai Manga
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The Hokusai Manga is a collection of sketches of various subjects by the Japanese artist Hokusai. Subjects of the sketches include landscapes, flora and fauna, everyday life, the word manga in the title does not refer to the contemporary story-telling manga, as the sketches in the work are not connected to each other. Block-printed in three colours, the Manga comprise literally thousands of images in 15 volumes, the first published in 1814, the final three volumes were published posthumously, two of them assembled by their publisher from previously unpublished material. The final volume was made up of published works, some not even by Hokusai. The preface to the first volume of the work, written by Hanshū Sanjin, part of the preface reads, The final volume is considered spurious by some art historians. The traditional view holds that, after the outburst of production, Hokusai carefully selected and redrew the sketches, however, Michener argues that the pattern of the images on a particular plate were arranged by the wood carvers and publishers, not by the artist himself. The first volume of Manga, was an art book published to aid his troubled finances. Shortly after he removed the text and republished it, the Manga evidence a dedication to artistic realism in portrayal of people and the natural world. The work was an success, and the subsequent volumes soon followed. The work became known to the West since Philipp Franz van Siebolds lithographed paraphrases of some of the sketches appeared in his Nippon, the work began to circulate in the West soon after Matthew C. Perrys entry into Japan in 1854, new York, Harry N. Abrams, Inc. The Art of Hokusai in Book Illustration, london, Sotheby Parke Bernet, Berkeley, Calif. Michener, James A. Hokusai Sketchbooks, Selections from the Manga, rutland, Vermont & Tokyo, Charles E. Tuttle Company. The Floating World of Hokusai, BBC Radio 4, broadcast 10, all volumes at the Bibliothèque de lInstitut National dHistoire de lArt, Paris, France Hokusais Ukiyo print world
24.
Hongan-ji Nagoya Betsuin
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The Hongan-ji Betsuin is a Jōdo Shinshū buddhist temple located in Naka ward, Nagoya in central Japan. The temple is a distance south of Ōsu Kannon Station. The temple is run by the Ikko sect of Jōdo Shinshū, the temple is also called Nishi Honganji as opposed to the Higashi Honganji. It dates back to about 1500 CE when chief abbot Rennyos 13th child, Renjun, later it fell on hard times and was renovated. In the early Edo period it was moved to the current location at the time of the construction of Nagoya Castle and it was patronized by Baishō-in, one of the Shoguns main concubines. On October 5,1817 Hokusai painted at the temple the Big Daruma on paper, measuring 18x10.8 metres, although the original was destroyed in 1945, promotional handbills from that time survived and are preserved at the Nagoya City Museum. In 1874, close to the temple, a training centre. Later the centre was moved to Tennozaki on the banks of the Hori River, the wooden building and artwork were largely destroyed during the bombing of Nagoya in World War II in May 1945. It was rebuilt in a pseudo-ancient Indian style, only the wooden shōrō survived the war and remains intact. On the grounds is a statue to the founder Shinran. The Hongan-ji Betsuin houses the ashes of deceased persons, which are kept in their urns in metal lockers on the floor of the temple. By request from relatives, monks will perform services for a fee. Tsukiji Hongan-ji in Tokyo, which has architectural resemblance Media related to Honganji Nagoya Betsuin at Wikimedia Commons Homepage of the Hongan-ji Nagoya Betsuin
25.
Nagoya City Museum
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The Nagoya City Museum is a museum of the city of Nagoya in Aichi Prefecture, Japan. The Nagoya City Museum was established in 1977 and its collection includes archaeological materials, fine art, crafts, documents, books and folk materials including samurai armor and weaponry, many of which are put on exhibition. A memorandum of understanding and cooperation was signed in January 2000 with the Vienna Museum, the nearest stop by subway is Sakurayama Station on the Sakura-dōri Line. Media related to Nagoya City Museum at Wikimedia Commons Homepage of the Nagoya City Museum
26.
A Tour of the Waterfalls of the Provinces
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A Tour of the Waterfalls of the Provinces is a series of landscape woodblock prints by the Japanese ukiyo-e artist Hokusai. 1833–34 and containing eight prints, it was the first ukiyo-e series to approach the theme of falling water, the waterfalls take up most of each sheet, dwarfing the scenes human inhabitants, and are rendered by Hokusai with a powerful sense of life, reflecting his animistic beliefs. In Japans Shintoist religion, gods and spirits inhibit the surrounding nature, such as trees, the waterfalls Hokusai chose to illustrate are located in the central, western and eastern parts of Japans main island. The regions chosen were well known for pilgriming and by the travelers of his time, all the prints are in vertical format and in their composition there is sometimes included human or animal forms which appear to be insignificant in front of the plummeting water. Unlike most of his works, in the Waterfalls series Hokusai uses more color, in order to highlight the new and main theme. Besides using imported blue pigments either from Berlin or Prussia, the artist also adds contrasting yellows, browns and greens to paint the surrounding forested mountains
27.
Oceans of Wisdom
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Chie no umi is a chūban yoko-e sized woodblock print series by the Japanese artist Hokusai. The ten fishing-themed prints comprise one of Hokusais rarest sets, published by Moriya Jihei, it seems to have been issued around 1832–34 and publication of the prints ceased abruptly. Some preparatory drawings are extant for prints that were never made, the title of the series can be read in two ways. The characters 千絵の海 read as A Thousand Pictures of the Ocean and this is particularly evident in the print Chōshi in Shimōsa Province, which shows fishing boats struggling in a stormy sea, echoing his roughly contemporaneous Great Wave. The series use of colour differs from other prints of the time with richly overprinted shades. Hokusai also employs the technique of using black for colour and not just line. Hokusais Chie no umi, The Oceans of Wisdom, noboto at Shimōsa, from the series One Thousand Pictures of the Sea Metropolitan Museum of Art Auction for Soshu Tonegawa at Christies
28.
Kaei
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Kaei was a Japanese era name after Kōka and before Ansei. This period spanned the years from February 1848 through November 1854, February 28,1848 Kaei gannen, The era name of Kaei was created to mark the beginning of the reign of the Emperor Kōmei. The era name is derived from an aphorism in the Book of Song, A wise Emperor receives much help, july 1848, Ranald MacDonald, left the whaler Plymouth in a small boat and landed on Rishiri Island. 1849, Medical practice of vaccination introduced by Dutch physician, Dr. Mohnike, july 1853, Commodore Matthew Perry, commanding the United States Navys East Indies fleet, arrives in Japanese waters with four ships. The prince was moved, and expressed his gratitude with evident feeling. The commodore next presented the other commissioners with gifts he had reserved for them. -- from American eyewitness account of the event May 2,1854, Fire broke out in the Sentō, the emperor took refuge at Shimokam and afterwards went to Shōgon-in. November 4–7,1854, Great Nankaidō earthquakes and tsunamis kill 80,000 people,1854, The era name was changed to Ansei, which was meant to herald the beginning of a peaceful period. The impetus and explanation for this change of era names was said to have been the burning of the Palace in Kyoto in the preceding summer, a History of Japan, 1582-1941, Internal and External Worlds. ISBN9780521821551, ISBN9780521529181, OCLC50694793 Hammer, Joshua, Yokohama Burning, The Deadly 1923 Earthquake and Fire that Helped Forge the Path to World War II. ISBN9780743264655, OCLC67774380 Hawks, Francis, narrative of the Expedition of an American Squadron to the China Seas and Japan Performed in the Years 1852,1853 and 1854 under the Command of Commodore M. C. Perry, United States Navy, Washington, A. O. P, nicholson by order of Congress,1856, originally published in Senate Executive Documents, No.34 of 33rd Congress, 2nd Session. OCLC366454 Nussbaum, Louis Frédéric and Käthe Roth, ISBN 978-0-674-01753-5, OCLC48943301 Ponsonby-Fane, Richard A. B. Kyoto, The Old Capital of Japan, 794-1869, Japan 1853-1864, Or, Genji Yume Monogatari. The Logbook of the Captains Clerk, Adventures in the China Seas, Bangor, Maine, notes on the history of medical progress in Japan, Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, Yokohama, R. J
29.
The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife
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The Dream of the Fishermans Wife, also known as Girl Diver and Octopuses, Diver and Two Octopuses, etc. is a woodblock-printed design by the Japanese artist Hokusai. It is included in Kinoe no Komatsu, a book of shunga erotica first published in 1814. Playing with themes popular in Japanese art, it depicts a young ama diver entwined sexually with a pair of octopuses, Octopi and shell diver is the most famous image in Kinoe no Komatsu, published in three volumes from 1814. The book is a work of shunga within the ukiyo-e genre, the image depicts a woman, evidently an ama, enveloped in the limbs of two octopuses. The larger of the two mollusks performs cunnilingus on her, while the one, his offspring, assists by fondling the womans mouth. In the text above the image the woman and the creatures express their mutual sexual pleasure from the encounter, all designs in the publication are untitled, this design is generally known in Japanese as Tako to ama, translated variously into English. Richard Douglas Lane calls it Girl Diver and Octopi, Matthi Forrer calls it Pearl Diver and Two Octopi, the open book measures 6½ × 8¾. Scholar Danielle Talerico notes that the image would have recalled to the minds of viewers the story of Princess Tamatori. In this story, Tamatori is a modest shell diver who marries Fujiwara no Fuhito of the Fujiwara clan, who is searching for a pearl stolen from his family by Ryūjin, the dragon god of the sea. Vowing to help, Tamatori dives down to Ryūjins undersea palace of Ryūgū-jō and she cuts open her own breast and places the jewel inside, this allows her to swim faster and escape, but she dies from her wound soon after reaching the surface. The Tamatori story was a subject in ukiyo-e art. The artist Utagawa Kuniyoshi produced works based on it, which often include octopuses among the creatures being evaded by the bare-breasted diver. In the text above Hokusais image, the big octopus says he will bring the girl to Ryūjins undersea palace, the Dream of the Fishermans Wife is not the only work of Edo-period art to depict erotic relations between a woman and an octopus. Some early netsuke carvings show cephalopods fondling nude women, Hokusais contemporary Yanagawa Shigenobu created an image of a woman receiving cunnilingus from an octopus very similar to Hokusais in his collection Suetsumuhana of 1830. Talerico notes that earlier Western critics such as Edmond de Goncourt and she notes that these scholars would have seen it apart from the Kinoe no Komatsu collection and without understanding the text and visual references, depriving it of its original context. Goncourt did, however, know its original context, which he describes in a passage of his monograph on Hokusai. According to Chris Uhlenbeck and Margarita Winkel, his print is testimony to how our interpretation of an image can be distorted when seen in isolation and without understanding the text. The image is often cited as a forerunner of tentacle erotica, modern tentacle erotica similarly depicts sex between women and tentacled beasts, the sex in modern depictions is typically forced, as opposed to Hokusais mutually pleasurable interaction
30.
Shunga
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Shunga is a Japanese term for erotic art. Most shunga are a type of ukiyo-e, usually executed in woodblock print format, while rare, there are extant erotic painted handscrolls which predate the Ukiyo-e movement. Translated literally, the Japanese word shunga means picture of spring, spring is a euphemism for sex. The ukiyo-e movement as a whole sought to express an idealisation of contemporary urban life, following the aesthetics of everyday life, Edo period shunga varied widely in its depictions of sexuality. As a subset of ukiyo-e it was enjoyed by all groups in the Edo period. Almost all ukiyo-e artists made shunga at some point in their careers, Shunga was heavily influenced by illustrations in Chinese medicine manuals beginning in the Muromachi era. Zhou Fang, a great Tang-dynasty Chinese erotic painter, is thought to have been influential. He, like many artists of his time and place, tended to exaggerate the size of the genital organs. The Japanese influences of shunga date back to the Heian period, at this point, it was found among the courtier class. Through the medium of narrative handscrolls, sexual scandals from the court or the monasteries were depicted. The style reached its height in the Edo period, thanks to woodblock printing techniques, the quantity and quality increased dramatically. There were repeated attempts to suppress shunga, the first of which was an edict issued by the Tokugawa shogunate in 1661 banning, among other things. While other genres covered by the edict, such as works criticising daimyōs or samurai, were driven underground by this edict, the Kyōhō Reforms, a 1722 edict, was much more strict, banning the production of all new books unless the city commissioner gave permission. After this edict, shunga went underground, further attempts to prevent the production of shunga were made with the Kansei Reforms in the 1790s. According to Monta Hayakawa and C. Andrew Gerstle, westerners during the century were less appreciative of shunga because of its erotic nature. In the journal of Francis Hall, an American businessperson who arrived in Yokohama in 1859, Hayakawa stated that Hall was shocked and disgusted when on two separate occasions his Japanese acquaintances and their wives showed him shunga at their homes. In 2014 he revisited the museum, which had an exhibition entirely of shunga proudly displayed, the introduction of Western culture and technologies at the beginning of the Meiji era, particularly the importation of photo-reproduction techniques, had serious consequences for shunga. For a time, woodblock printing continued to be used, but figures began to appear in prints wearing Western clothing, eventually, shunga could no longer compete with erotic photography, leading to its decline
31.
Woodcut
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Woodcut is a relief printing technique in printmaking. An artist carves an image into the surface of a block of wood—typically with gouges—leaving the printing parts level with the surface while removing the non-printing parts. Areas that the artist cuts away carry no ink, while characters or images at surface level carry the ink to produce the print, the block is cut along the wood grain. The surface is covered with ink by rolling over the surface with a roller, leaving ink upon the flat surface. Multiple colors can be printed by keying the paper to a frame around the woodblocks, single-leaf woodcut is a term for a woodcut presented as a single image or print, as opposed to a book illustration. Among these the best known are the 16th century Hieronymus Andreae, Hans Lützelburger and Jost de Negker, all of whom ran workshops, the formschneider in turn handed the block on to specialist printers. There were further specialists who made the blank blocks and this is why woodcuts are sometimes described by museums or books as designed by rather than by an artist, but most authorities do not use this distinction. The division of labour had the advantage that a trained artist could adapt to the medium relatively easily, there were various methods of transferring the artists drawn design onto the block for the cutter to follow. Either the drawing would be made directly onto the block, or a drawing on paper was glued to the block, either way, the artists drawing was destroyed during the cutting process. Other methods were used, including tracing, in both Europe and the Far East in the early 20th century, some artists began to do the whole process themselves. In Japan, this movement was called sōsaku-hanga, as opposed to shin-hanga, in the West, many artists used the easier technique of linocut instead. Compared to intaglio techniques like etching and engraving, only low pressure is required to print, as a relief method, it is only necessary to ink the block and bring it into firm and even contact with the paper or cloth to achieve an acceptable print. In Europe a variety of woods including boxwood and several nut and fruit woods like pear or cherry were commonly used, in Japan, there are three methods of printing to consider, Stamping, Used for many fabrics and most early European woodcuts. Used for European woodcuts and block-books later in the fifteenth century, also used for many Western woodcuts from about 1910 to the present. The block goes face up on a table, with the paper or fabric on top, the back is rubbed with a hard pad, a flat piece of wood, a burnisher, or a leather frotton. A traditional Japanese tool used for this is called a baren, later in Japan, complex wooden mechanisms were used to help hold the woodblock perfectly still and to apply proper pressure in the printing process. This was especially helpful once multiple colors were introduced and had to be applied with precision atop previous ink layers, printing in a press, presses only seem to have been used in Asia in relatively recent times. Printing-presses were used from about 1480 for European prints and block-books, simple weighted presses may have been used in Europe before the print-press, but firm evidence is lacking
32.
Samurai
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Samurai were the military nobility and officer caste of medieval and early-modern Japan. In Japanese, they are referred to as bushi or buke. In both countries the terms were nominalized to mean those who serve in close attendance to the nobility, the pronunciation in Japanese changing to saburai. According to Wilson, a reference to the word samurai appears in the Kokin Wakashū. By the end of the 12th century, samurai became almost entirely synonymous with bushi, the samurai were usually associated with a clan and their lord, and were trained as officers in military tactics and grand strategy. While the samurai numbered less than 10% of then Japans population, following the Battle of Hakusukinoe against Tang China and Silla in 663 AD, which led to a retreat from Korean affairs, Japan underwent widespread reform. One of the most important was that of the Taika Reform and this edict allowed the Japanese aristocracy to adopt the Tang dynasty political structure, bureaucracy, culture, religion, and philosophy. As part of the Taihō Code of 702 AD, and the later Yōrō Code, the population was required to regularly for census. With an understanding of how the population was distributed, Emperor Monmu introduced a law whereby 1 in 3–4 adult males were drafted into the national military and these soldiers were required to supply their own weapons, and in-return were exempted from duties and taxes. This was one of the first attempts by the Imperial government to form an organized army modeled after the Chinese system and it was called Gundan-Sei by later historians and is believed to have been short-lived. The Taihō Code classified most of the Imperial bureaucrats into 12 ranks and those of 6th rank and below were referred to as samurai and dealt with day-to-day affairs. Although these samurai were civilian public servants, the word is believed to have derived from this term. Military men, however, would not be referred to as samurai for many more centuries, Emperor Kanmu introduced the title of seii-taishōgun, or Shogun, and began to rely on the powerful regional clans to conquer the Emishi. Skilled in mounted combat and archery, these clan warriors became the Emperors preferred tool for putting down rebellions, though this is the first known use of the Shogun title, it was a temporary title, and was not imbued with political power until the 13th century. At this time, the Imperial Court officials considered them to be merely a military section under the control of the Imperial Court, ultimately, Emperor Kanmu disbanded his army. From this time, the Emperors power gradually declined, while the Emperor was still the ruler, powerful clans around Kyoto assumed positions as ministers, and their relatives bought positions as magistrates. To amass wealth and repay their debts, magistrates often imposed heavy taxes, through protective agreements and political marriages, they accumulated, or gathered, political power, eventually surpassing the traditional aristocracy. Some clans were formed by farmers who had taken up arms to protect themselves from the Imperial magistrates sent to govern their lands
33.
Merchant
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A merchant is a person who trades in commodities produced by other people to earn a profit. A merchant historically was anyone involved in business as long as industry, commerce, the status of the merchant has varied during different periods of history and among different societies. There are two types of merchant, A wholesale merchant is a wholesaler who operates in the chain between produce and retail merchant, typically dealing in large quantities of goods, some wholesale merchants only organize the movement of goods rather than move the goods themselves. A retail merchant or retailer, sells merchandise to end-users or consumers, a shop-keeper is a retail merchant. Merchants have existed as long as business, industry, trade, a merchant class characterized many pre-modern societies. Open air, public markets were known in ancient Babylonia and Assyria, China, Egypt, Greece, India, Persia, Phonecia and these markets typically occupied a place in the towns centre. Surrounding the market, skilled artisans, such as metal-workers and leather workers and these artisans may have sold wares directly from their premises, but also prepared goods for sale on market days. In ancient Greece markets operated within the agora, and in ancient Rome the forum, the nature of direct selling centred around transactional exchange, where the goods were on open display, allowing buyers to evaluate quality directly through visual inspection. Relationships between merchant and consumer were minimal, the Phoenicians plied their ships across the Mediterranean, becoming a major trading power by 9th century BCE. The Phoenicians imported and exported wood, textiles, glass and produce such as wine, oil, dried fruit and their trading skills necessitated a network of colonies along the Mediterranean coast, stretching from modern day Crete through to Tangiers and onto Sardinia. The Phoenicians not only traded in goods, but were also instrumental in transporting the trappings of culture. The Phoenicians extensive trade networks necessitated considerable book-keeping and correspondence, in around 1500 BCE, the Phoenicians developed a phonetic alphabet which was much easier to learn that the pictographic scripts used in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. Phoenician traders and merchants were responsible for spreading their alphabet around the region. Phoenician inscriptions have been found in sites at a number of former Phoenician cities and colonies around the Mediterranean, such as Byblos. The Romans defined merchants or traders in a narrow sense. Merchants were those who bought and sold goods while landowners who sold their own produce were not considered to be merchants, being a landowner was a respectable occupation. On the other hand, the trade of merchant was not considered respectable, although they may have lacked high social standing, merchants in ancient Rome often made handsome profits. Umbricius Scauras, for example, was a manufacturer and trader of fish sauce in Pompeii and his villa, situated in one of the wealthier districts of Pompeii, was very large and ornately decorated in a show of substantial personal wealth
34.
The Tale of Genji
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It is sometimes called the worlds first novel, the first modern novel, the first psychological novel or the first novel still to be considered a classic. Notably, the work illustrates a unique depiction of the lifestyles of high courtiers during the Heian period. While regarded as a masterpiece, its classification and influence in both the Western and Eastern canons has been a matter of debate. The Tale of Genji may have been written chapter by chapter in installments, the work does not make use of a plot, instead, events happen and characters simply grow older. One remarkable feature of the Genji, and of Murasakis skill, is its internal consistency, for instance, all characters age in step and the family and feudal relationships maintain general consistency. One complication for readers and translators of the Genji is that almost none of the characters in the text are given explicit names. The characters are referred to by their function or role, an honorific, or their relation to other characters. This lack of names stems from Heian-era court manners that would have made it unacceptably familiar, Modern readers and translators have used various nicknames to keep track of the many characters. The Tale of Genji was written in a court language that was already unreadable a century after it was written. Thus, the Japanese have been reading annotated and illustrated versions of the work since as early as the 12th century and it was not until the early 20th century that Genji was translated into modern Japanese, by the poet Akiko Yosano. The debate over how much of Genji was actually written by Murasaki Shikibu has gone on for centuries and is unlikely to ever be settled some major archival discovery is made. It is generally accepted that the tale was finished in its present form by 1021, Murasaki Shikibus own diary includes a reference to the tale, and indeed the application to herself of the name Murasaki in an allusion to the main female character. That entry confirms that if not all of the diary was available in 1008 when internal evidence suggests convincingly that the entry was written. Lady Murasaki is said to have written the character of Genji based on the Minister on the Left at the time she was at court, Other translators, such as Tyler, believe the character Murasaki no Ue, whom Genji marries, is based on Murasaki Shikibu herself. Other scholars have doubted the authorship of chapters 42 to 54. For political reasons, the emperor removes Genji from the line of succession, demoting him to a commoner by giving him the surname Minamoto, the tale concentrates on Genjis romantic life and describes the customs of the aristocratic society of the time. Genjis mother dies when he is three years old, and the Emperor cannot forget her, the Emperor Kiritsubo then hears of a woman, formerly a princess of the preceding emperor, who resembles his deceased concubine, and later she becomes one of his wives. Genji loves her first as a stepmother, but later as a woman, Genji is frustrated by his forbidden love for the Lady Fujitsubo and is on bad terms with his wife
35.
Nichiren
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Nichiren, born as Zennichimaro, was a Japanese Buddhist priest who lived during the Kamakura period. Nichiren is known for his devotion to the Lotus Sutra. Nichiren believed that the Lotus Sutra contained the essence of all of Shakyamuni Buddhas teachings related to the laws of causality, karma, the fundamental practice shared by all of them is the chanting of Nam Myōhō Renge Kyō. Nichiren was born on 16 February 1222 in the village of Kominato, Nagase District, Nichirens father, a fisherman, was Mikuni-no-Tayu Shigetada, also known as Nukina Shigetada Jiro and his mother was Umegiku-nyo. On his birth, his parents named him Zennichimaro which has variously been translated into English as Splendid Sun, the exact site of Nichirens birth is believed to be submerged off the shore from present-day Kominato-zan Tanjō-ji, a temple in Kominato that commemorates Nichirens birth. In his own words, Nichiren stated that he was the son of a family who lived near the sea in Tojo in Awa Province. However, I began doubting this practice, making a vow to study all the Buddhist sutras, commentaries on them by Bodhisattvas, Nichiren began his Buddhist study at a nearby temple of the Tendai school, Seichō-ji, at age 11. He was formally ordained at 16 and took the Buddhist name Zeshō-bō Renchō where Renchō means Lotus Growth, after having persuaded himself that devotion to Amitabha Buddha was not the true Buddhist doctrine, he passed to the study of Zen, which had become popular in Kamakura and Kyōto. During this time, he became convinced of the pre-eminence of the Lotus Sutra and in 1253, on April 28,1253, he expounded the daimoku teachings for the first time, marking his Sho Tempōrin. With this, he proclaimed that devotion and practice based on the Lotus Sutra was the form of Buddhism for the current time. At the same time he changed his name to Nichiren, nichi meaning sun and this choice, as Nichiren himself explained, was rooted in passages from the Lotus Sutra. He gained a large following there, consisting of both priests and laity. Many of his lay believers came from among the samurai class and it is claimed that in 1253 Nichiren predicted the Mongol invasions of Japan, a prediction which was validated in 1274. This true and correct form of Buddhism, as Nichiren saw it, entailed regarding the Lotus Sutra as the fullest expression of the Buddhas teachings and putting those teachings into practice. Nichiren thought this could be achieved in Japan by withdrawing lay support so that the deviant monks would be forced to change their ways or revert to laymen to prevent starving. Based on prophecies made in several sutras, Nichiren attributed the occurrence of the famines, disease, Nichiren submitted his treatise in July 1260. Though it drew no response, it prompted a severe backlash. Nichiren was harassed frequently, several times with force, and often had to change dwellings, Nichiren was exiled to the Izu Peninsula in 1261, and pardoned in 1263
36.
Polaris
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Polaris, designated Alpha Ursae Minoris, commonly the North Star or Pole Star, is the brightest star in the constellation of Ursa Minor. It is very close to the celestial pole, making it the current northern pole star. The revised Hipparcos parallax gives a distance to Polaris of about 433 light-years, Polaris is a multiple star, comprising the main star in orbit with a smaller companion, the pair in orbit with Polaris B. There were once thought to be two more distant components—Polaris C and Polaris D—but these have been not to be physically associated with the Polaris system. Polaris Aa is a 4.5 solar mass F7 yellow supergiant of spectral type Ib and this is the first classical Cepheid to have a mass determined from its orbit. William Herschel discovered the star in 1780 while using a hand-built reflecting telescope, in 1929 it was discovered, by examining the spectrum of Polaris A, that it was a very close binary, with the secondary being a dwarf, which had been theorized in earlier observations. In January 2006, NASA released images, from the Hubble telescope, that showed the three members of the Polaris ternary system. The nearest dwarf star is in an orbit of only 18.5 au from Polaris A, about the distance between the Sun and Uranus), which explains why its light is swamped by its close and much brighter companion. Polaris A, the supergiant primary component, is a low-amplitude Population I classical Cepheid variable, cepheids constitute an important standard candle for determining distance, so Polaris, as the closest such star, is heavily studied. The variability of Polaris had been suspected since 1852, this variation was confirmed by Ejnar Hertzsprung in 1911, the range of brightness of Polaris during its pulsations is given as 1. 86–2.13, but the amplitude has changed since discovery. Prior to 1963, the amplitude was over 0.1 magnitude and was gradually decreasing. After 1966 it very rapidly decreased until it was less than 0.05 magnitude, since then and it has been reported that the amplitude is now increasing again, a reversal not seen in any other Cepheid. The period, roughly 4 days, has changed over time. It has steadily increased by around 4.5 seconds per year except for a hiatus in 1963–1965 and this was originally thought to be due to secular redward evolution across the Cepheid instability strip, but it may be due to interference between the primary and the first-overtone pulsation modes. Authors disagree on whether Polaris is a fundamental or first-overtone pulsator, the temperature of Polaris varies by only a small amount during its pulsations, but the amount of this variation is variable and unpredictable. The erratic changes of temperature and the amplitude of changes during each cycle, from less than 50 K to at least 170 K. Research reported in Science suggests that Polaris is 2.5 times brighter today than when Ptolemy observed it, because of its importance in celestial navigation, Polaris is known by numerous names. It became known as Polaris during the Renaissance, its derived from the Latin polaris of/near the pole
37.
The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter
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The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter is a 10th-century Japanese monogatari containing folkloric elements. It is considered the oldest extant Japanese prose narrative although the oldest manuscript dates to 1592, the tale is also known as The Tale of Princess Kaguya, after its protagonist. It primarily details the life of a girl called Kaguya-hime. One day, while walking in the bamboo forest, an old, childless bamboo cutter called Taketori no Okina came across a mysterious, after cutting it open, he found inside it an infant the size of his thumb. He rejoiced to find such a girl and took her home. He and his wife raised her as their own child and named her Kaguya-hime, thereafter, Taketori no Okina found that whenever he cut down a stalk of bamboo, inside would be a small nugget of gold. Kaguya-hime grew from a baby into a woman of ordinary size. At first, Taketori no Okina tried to keep her away from outsiders, eventually, five princes came to Taketori no Okinas residence to ask for Kaguya-himes hand in marriage. The princes eventually persuaded Taketori no Okina to tell a reluctant Kaguya-hime to choose from among them, Kaguya-hime concocted impossible tasks for the princes, agreeing to marry the one who managed to bring her his specified item. That night, Taketori no Okina told the five princes what each must bring, realizing that it was an impossible task, the first prince returned with an expensive bowl, but after noticing that the bowl did not glow with holy light, Kaguya-hime saw through his deception. Likewise, two other princes attempted to deceive her with fakes, but also failed, the fourth gave up after encountering a storm, while the final prince lost his life in his attempt. After this, the Emperor of Japan, Mikado, came to see the strangely beautiful Kaguya-hime and, upon falling in love and she stayed in contact with the Emperor, but continued to rebuff his requests and marriage proposals. That summer, whenever Kaguya-hime saw the moon, her eyes filled with tears. Though her adoptive parents worried greatly and questioned her, she was unable to tell them what was wrong and her behaviour became increasingly erratic until she revealed that she was not of this world and must return to her people on the Moon. The gold that Taketori no Okina had been finding had in fact been a stipend from the people of the Moon, Kaguya-hime announced that, though she loved her many friends on Earth, she must return with the Moon people to her true home. She wrote sad notes of apology to her parents and to the Emperor and she then took a small taste of the elixir of life, attached it to her letter to the Emperor, and gave it to a guard officer. As she handed it to him, the robe was placed on her shoulders. The heavenly entourage took Kaguya-hime back to Tsuki-no-Miyako, leaving her earthly foster parents in tears, the parents became very sad and were soon put to bed sick
38.
Manga
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Manga are comics created in Japan or by creators in the Japanese language, conforming to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century. They have a long and complex pre-history in earlier Japanese art, the term manga in Japan is a word used to refer to both comics and cartooning. Manga as a term used outside Japan refers to comics published in Japan. In Japan, people of all ages read manga, many manga are translated into other languages. Since the 1950s, manga has become a major part of the Japanese publishing industry, representing a ¥406 billion market in Japan in 2007. Manga have also gained a significant worldwide audience, in Europe and the Middle East the market was worth $250 million in 2012. In 2008, in the U. S. and Canada, the market was valued at $175 million, the markets in France. Manga stories are printed in black-and-white, although some full-color manga exist. In Japan, manga are usually serialized in manga magazines, often containing many stories. If the series is successful, collected chapters may be republished in tankōbon volumes, frequently but not exclusively, a manga artist typically works with a few assistants in a small studio and is associated with a creative editor from a commercial publishing company. If a manga series is popular enough, it may be animated after or even during its run, sometimes manga are drawn centering on previously existing live-action or animated films. Manga-influenced comics, among original works, exist in parts of the world, particularly in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan. The word manga comes from the Japanese word 漫画, composed of the two kanji 漫 meaning whimsical or impromptu and 画 meaning pictures, rakuten Kitazawa first used the word manga in the modern sense. In Japanese, manga refers to all kinds of cartooning, comics, among English speakers, manga has the stricter meaning of Japanese comics, in parallel to the usage of anime in and outside Japan. The term ani-manga is used to describe comics produced from animation cels, writers on manga history have described two broad and complementary processes shaping modern manga. One view emphasizes events occurring during and after the U. S, occupation of Japan, and stresses U. S. cultural influences, including U. S. comics and images and themes from U. S. television, film, and cartoons. Regardless of its source, an explosion of artistic creativity certainly occurred in the period, involving manga artists such as Osamu Tezuka. Astro Boy quickly became popular in Japan and elsewhere
listen (help·info), c. October 31, 1760 – May 10, 1849) was a Japanese artist, ukiyo-e painter and printmaker of the Edo period.[1] Born in Edo (now Tokyo), Hokusai is best known as author of the woodblock print series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (富嶽三十六景 Fugaku Sanjūroku-kei, c. 1831) which includes the internationally iconic print, The Great Wave off Kanagawa.
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