Page:A history of Japanese colour-prints by Woldemar von Seidlitz.djvu/356

 himself on representations of a great and noble style, on high art proper, and that of itself suffices to assign a subordinate rank to the artist in the judgment of the Japanese, who find no compensation in wit and humour for defects of formal beauty. Literary culture also seems never to have been his forte; and as his success was mainly due to his native talent, so he remained to the last an artisan.

During an activity of more than sixty years—he died in the year, at the age of ninety—he is reputed to have produced some sketches and to have illustrated about  volumes.

Katsushika Hokusai was born in Yedo on th March, and was adopted in early youth by Nakajima Ise, looking-glass maker to the Tokugawa clan, who lived in the garden-suburb Honjo, on the farther side of the Sumida River, in the district of Katsushika. At the age of twelve he was apprenticed to a bookseller; then from the age of fourteen he studied the art of wood-engraving, and became in a pupil of Katsukawa Shunsho, as such adopting the name of Katsukawa Shunro. He painted actors and theatrical scenes, illustrated from many of the small popular books, called Kibiyoshi, from their yellow colour, but was obliged to leave his master in. According to Bing, he then went to Kano Yusen, whom likewise he was soon obliged to leave. In the years he employed the name Gummatei. From, he himself composed many popular