(Wakan) Ehon sakigake （和漢）絵本魁

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Commentary by Ann Yonemura

Posted November 2014

Among the illustrated books by Hokusai produced during his later years, the three volumes of warrior illustrations—Wakan ehon sakigake and Ehon Musashi abumi published in 1836 and Ehon wakan no homare published in 1850—feature powerful, imaginative images depicting the courageous acts of great fighters of the past. Wakan ehon sakigake includes both Chinese and Japanese warriors, an example of the parallel and equal virtue in the two cultures that Hokusai often expressed in his books and prints during the 1830s. A few women are included among the heroes who battle men and animals, giant spiders and birds, and ghosts.

Hokusai’s double-page illustrations are masterworks of composition, pattern, and linear detail. Dark shadows occasionally add a menacing effect, as in the depiction of the struggle between the warrior Oki no Jirōemon and a supernatural bird. Hokusai’s highly developed skills in composition heighten the dramatic tension. For the most part, the focus is on one or two figures, with the action concentrated in the foreground. A few illustrations have been rotated ninety degrees, with the top of the image at the right, to allow for greater height. The dramatic, exaggerated poses of the figures and the use of theatrical conventions enhance the clarity of action despite the complexity in the scenes. In some illustrations, Hokusai expresses his virtuosity in depicting landscapes and turbulent water. Occasionally, he intersperses tranquil scenes that recall his portrayals of poets.

These warrior titles were published during a period when Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1797–1861) had emerged as an outstanding designer of color prints of warriors in a uniquely dense and complex style. The colophon of this volume suggests Hokusai planned two more volumes of illustrations and a volume of text, but this was the only one issued.

Selected reading:

Marco Fagioli, Hokusai: Wakan Ehon Sakigake (Florence: La Citta, 1978).

Matthi Forrer, “Review of Marco Fagioli, Wakan Ehon Sakigake,” Andon 1 (1981): pp. 57–58.

Jack Hillier, The Art of Hokusai in Book Illustration (London: Sotheby Parke-Bernet Publications; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), pp. 227–33.

Jack Hillier, The Art of the Japanese Book, vol. 2 (New York: Sotheby’s Publications, 1987), p. 888.

Toda Kenji, Descriptive Catalogue of Japanese and Chinese Illustrated Books in the Ryerson Library of the Art Institute of Chicago (1931; repr., Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2005), p. 263.

Copies in other collections:

Art Institute of Chicago, Ryerson Collection

Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Library

National Institute of Japanese Literature

Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde, Leiden (1353-55)

Ehon sakigake shohen