1820, Katsushika Hokusai, Tang Lady on a White Elephant, from the series Giant Straw Works for an Amusement-Park Attraction -- Yale University Art Gallery (New Haven)
From the museum label:
This print shows the final three of the twelve animals of the Zodiac calendar: the rooster, dog, and boar.
Katsushika Hokusai's Giant Straw Works for an Amusement-Park Attraction
In these three prints from a series of four, Katsushika Hokusai illustrated the animals of the Zodiac alongside papier-mâché floats for an amusement park outside Sensōji Temple, in downtown Edo (present-day Tokyo). The series demonstrates the artist's great talent in handling a wide variety of subject matter—whether human figures, elaborate costumes, or birds and animals—in a highly lifelike manner influenced not only by popular schools of Japanese painting but also by Western modes of naturalistic representation and one-point perspective. In the print at far right, for example, Hokusai's depiction of the dragon expertly captures the attributes of this creature as they had been defined throughout East Asian history.
Amid this performance of mastery in observation of the natural world, one notable departure is Hokusai's rendering at far left of the elephant—an animal that, although real rather than mythical, was unfamiliar in northeast Asia. With scalloped ears and a single eye, the white elephant here remains an element of fantasy.
1820, Katsushika Hokusai, Tang Lady on a White Elephant, from the series Giant Straw Works for an Amusement-Park Attraction -- Yale University Art Gallery (New Haven)
From the museum label:
This print shows the final three of the twelve animals of the Zodiac calendar: the rooster, dog, and boar.
Katsushika Hokusai's Giant Straw Works for an Amusement-Park Attraction
In these three prints from a series of four, Katsushika Hokusai illustrated the animals of the Zodiac alongside papier-mâché floats for an amusement park outside Sensōji Temple, in downtown Edo (present-day Tokyo). The series demonstrates the artist's great talent in handling a wide variety of subject matter—whether human figures, elaborate costumes, or birds and animals—in a highly lifelike manner influenced not only by popular schools of Japanese painting but also by Western modes of naturalistic representation and one-point perspective. In the print at far right, for example, Hokusai's depiction of the dragon expertly captures the attributes of this creature as they had been defined throughout East Asian history.
Amid this performance of mastery in observation of the natural world, one notable departure is Hokusai's rendering at far left of the elephant—an animal that, although real rather than mythical, was unfamiliar in northeast Asia. With scalloped ears and a single eye, the white elephant here remains an element of fantasy.