The first book to focus exclusively on Hokusais landscapes by one of the worlds leading ukiyoe specialistsThe best known of all Japanese artists Katsushika Hokusai was active as a painter book illustrator and print designer throughout his 90year lifespan. Yet his most famous worksthe color woodblock landscape prints issued in serieswere produced within a relatively short time in an amazing burst of creative energy that lasted from about 1830 to 1836. Hokusais landscapes revolutionized Japanese printmaking and became icons of world art within a few decades of the artists death. Hokusais Landscapes focuses exclusively on this pivotal body of the artists work the first book to do so. Featuring stunning color reproductions of works from the incomparable Japanese art collection at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston the largest collection of Japanese prints outside Japan Hokusais Landscapes examines the magnetic appeal of Hokusais designs and the circumstances of their creation. The book includes all published prints of the artists eight major landscape series ThirtySix Views of Mount Fuji 183032 A Tour of Waterfalls in Various Provinces 183334 Snow Moon and Flowers 1833 Eight Views of the Ryukyu Islands 183233 One Thousand Pictures of the Ocean 183233 Remarkable Views of Bridges in Various Provinces 1834 A True Mirror of Chinese and Japanese Poetry 1833 and One Hundred Poems Explained by the Nurse 1835. Working prolifically in the years just before Japan opened to the West in 1853 Katsushika Hokusai 17601849 was the first Japanese artist to be internationally recognized. His cleverly composed ukiyoe prints of everyday life and the landscapes of Edo Japan arrived in a 19thcentury Europe gripped by Japonismemania where they influenced artists such as Degas Gauguin Manet and Van Gogh.