Hokusai: 30 Names, 30,000 Works, Five More Years at 88 — and No Permanent Grave

Last updated: May 2026 · By Stanislav Arnautov · Berlin

Katsushika Hokusai (c.1760–1849) is the most productive, the most biographically specific, and the most globally influential Japanese artist in the history of Western domestic art recognition. He is the artist most associated with Japonisme — the specific influence of Japanese visual culture on Western art from the 1850s onward — and with the specific flat-colour conventions that transformed Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, and the Art Nouveau movements. His Great Wave off Kanagawa (c.1831) is the most widely reproduced woodblock print in the history of art. And yet most people who have the Great Wave on their wall do not know the five biographical facts that make Hokusai permanently inexhaustible: the approximately 30 name changes; the approximately 93 house moves; the approximately 30,000 works in approximately 70 active years; the Great Wave made at approximately age 70; and the deathbed statement at approximately 88–89 that he still needed five more years. External references: Metropolitan Museum of Art — The Great Wave; British Museum — Hokusai. DeckArts Berlin from ~$230.

Birth and Early Training: Edo, c.1760

Katsushika Hokusai was born in Edo (now Tokyo) in approximately 1760. His exact birth date is not documented; the most widely cited approximation is the year 1760, based on his own statements about his age in his later works and correspondence. His father was Nakajima Ise, the mirror-polisher and picture-frame maker to the Tokugawa shogunate’s household. Hokusai was adopted at birth by Nakajima, who had no biological children; whether the adoption was legal or informal is debated in the historical record.

Growing up in a household engaged in mirror-polishing — the precise working of reflective metal surfaces to a specific geometric and optical standard — gave Hokusai a childhood exposure to the specific relationship between material craftsmanship, visual precision, and the production of functional objects with aesthetic qualities. The mirror-polisher’s craft is the most specific Japanese equivalent of the goldsmith’s craft that gave both Dürer and Klimt their specific material formation: the child who grows up in a household engaged in precise surface work develops specific visual habits that persist in the adult artist’s work.

Hokusai’s first documented professional engagement with printmaking was as an apprentice in the woodblock-cutting workshop of Kindaya, beginning at approximately 12–14 years old (approximately 1773–1775). At this workshop, he learned the technical foundation of the ukiyo-e woodblock tradition: the cutting of wooden blocks from drawn designs, the registration of multiple colour blocks to produce a multi-colour print, and the management of the specific technical challenges of Edo-period commercial printmaking. At approximately 18–19 years old (approximately 1778–1779), he entered the print studio of Katsukawa Shunshō as a student, acquiring the studio name Katsukawa Shunrō — the first of approximately 30 names he would use over his career.

Thirty Names: Artistic Identity as Perpetual Transformation

Hokusai changed his professional name approximately 30 times across his approximately 70-year career. In the Japanese artistic tradition, adopting a new name (gō or hō) marked a specific shift in artistic identity, studio affiliation, or formal programme. For most Japanese artists, one or two name changes in a career was the norm. Hokusai’s approximately 30 changes are extraordinary in the Japanese tradition and have been the subject of sustained biographical discussion: what do the name changes mean?

The documented sequence of Hokusai’s most significant names:

Katsukawa Shunrō (c.1778–1794): The Katsukawa studio name from his apprenticeship under Shunshō. He used this name for approximately 16 years, the longest single-name period of his career. During this period, he produced theatrical prints (yakusha-e, actor portraits), illustrations, and book designs in the Katsukawa studio’s specific commercial style.

Sōri (c.1795–1798): After leaving the Katsukawa studio (the circumstances of his departure are disputed; he may have been expelled after producing work in the Kanō painting style, which was outside the ukiyo-e tradition’s commercial territory), he adopted the Sōri name and worked in a different formal register, producing surimono (luxury privately printed greeting cards with metallic dusting and embossing) and book illustrations.

Hokusai (c.1798 onward): The name by which he is universally known. Hokusai (北斎) translates approximately as “Star of the North” or “North Studio” or “Star Auditorium” — various translations are proposed; the most common interpretation refers to Myoken Bosatsu, the deity of the North Star, which is the fixed celestial reference point around which all other stars appear to revolve. The name’s implied meaning: the fixed centre around which all artistic change revolves.

Taito (c.1811–1820): A name adopted to mark a specific formal transition; during this period, he produced the Hokusai Manga’s first volumes and large-scale landscape paintings.

Iitsu (c.1820–1834): The name under which the Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji (including the Great Wave) was produced. The name Iitsu (一壹) is particularly significant: it means approximately “once again the first” or “beginning again as one” — the specific statement of artistic renewal and fresh beginning at the age when most artists are producing their established mature style without significant change. At approximately 60–74 years old (the Iitsu period), Hokusai produced the Great Wave, the Red Fuji, and the other Thirty-Six Views that established his international reputation.

Man-ji (c.1834–1849): His final name, used from approximately 74 years old until his death at approximately 88–89. Man-ji (法山老人卐) literally incorporates the manji symbol (the Buddhist symbol of good fortune, similar to but not identical to the swastika in the Hindu and Buddhist traditions) and the identifier “old man” (rōjin): “Old Man of the Lucky Sign.” His late works under the Man-ji name include some of his most technically refined and most personally extreme compositions: the Ghost paintings (yūrei-zu), the late Fuji views in the Hundred Views of Mount Fuji, and the large paintings made for specific patrons in the final years of his life.

Ninety-Three Moves: The Deliberate Practice of Displacement

Hokusai moved house approximately 93 times over his career in Edo and its surroundings. This number is cited by his biographers and is supported by the historical records of his addresses in Edo; the precise count varies between 90 and 100+ in different sources, but “approximately 93” is the conventional figure. The approximately 93 moves are spread across approximately 70 active years = approximately 1.3 moves per year = approximately one move every nine months. He rarely lived in any single location for more than a year.

Hokusai’s own explanation for the frequent moves, as recorded by his students and contemporaries: he described moving house as a deliberate artistic practice. A new physical environment provided new visual observations, new formal problems, and new social contexts that generated new work. He found that the visual habituation produced by living in any single location for too long — the specific progressive diminishment of visual attention to familiar environments — was counterproductive to his observational programme. Moving disrupted the habituation and forced renewed observational engagement with the physical world.

The biographical counterpoint: the approximately 93 moves were also partly the consequence of financial and social instability. Hokusai had two wives (the first died before 1800; the second after approximately 1807) and several children, including his daughter Katsushika ōi (1800–1866), who was herself a significant artist and who managed her father’s household in his later years. His financial management was notoriously chaotic: he regularly spent beyond his income, accumulated debts, and moved as a consequence of creditors, disputes with landlords, and the specific disruptions of Edo-period commercial life. The deliberate artistic practice and the financial necessity were probably both genuine and simultaneous causes of the approximately 93 moves.

30,000 Works: The Mathematics of Daily Output

The standard biographical claim: Hokusai produced approximately 30,000 surviving works across his approximately 70 active years. The mathematical consequence: approximately 30,000 ÷ 70 years = approximately 428 works per year = approximately 8.2 works per week = approximately 1.17 works per day, every day, for 70 years. He produced more than one work per day, every day, from approximately age 19 to approximately age 88–89.

The specific content of the 30,000 works: the output was not uniformly produced across all formats. The majority are: (1) woodblock print designs (the drawn image on thin paper that was pasted to the wood block for cutting; multiple impressions from a single set of blocks multiply the physical print count but not the design count); (2) surimono designs (luxury private prints); (3) book illustrations (the Hokusai Manga alone contains approximately 4,000 individual images across 15 volumes); (4) album designs (ehon, or picture books, produced for commercial sale); (5) large paintings on silk and paper made for specific patrons or shrine dedications. Single-figure paintings in the traditional ink-wash (sumie) manner that he produced rapidly for specific patrons account for a significant portion of the high-volume daily output.

The comparison: Picasso, conventionally credited with the highest single-artist output in Western art history, produced approximately 20,000 works across approximately 75 active years = approximately 267 per year. Hokusai’s output (approximately 428 per year) is approximately 1.6 times Picasso’s rate, sustained for a comparable duration. Hokusai is the most productive major artist in documented art history by rate of output. See: British Museum — Hokusai.

The Great Wave at 70: The Commission and the Prussian Blue

The Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji was commissioned by the Edo publisher Nishimuraya Yohachi (Eijudō) from Hokusai in approximately 1829–1830, when Hokusai was approximately 69–70 years old. The series’ commercial success led to ten additional prints, for a total of 46. The Great Wave off Kanagawa (Kanagawa-oki nami-ura) is the second print in the standard series order and the most widely reproduced image in the history of the series — and possibly the most widely reproduced image in the history of Japanese art.

The specific technical innovation of the Thirty-Six Views: the adoption of Prussian blue (Berorin-ai, ベロリン藍, “Berlin blue”) as the dominant pigment. Prussian blue had reached Japan via the Dutch East India Company (VOC) through the Dejima trading post in Nagasaki in approximately the 1820s — approximately ten years before the Thirty-Six Views series. The specific advantages of Prussian blue for the woodblock print tradition: high tinting strength (uniform deep blue field in a single pass), cool chromatic temperature (maximum warm-cool contrast with the warm cream of the wave foam and the distant Mount Fuji), and affordability (dramatically cheaper than indigo or imported ultramarine, making large commercial print runs viable).

The chain: Johann Jacob Diesbach, Berlin 1704 (accidental invention) → Dutch VOC trade routes to Dejima, Nagasaki (c.1820) → Hokusai at approximately 70 years old (c.1831) → the Great Wave. DeckArts ships from Berlin — the city that invented the pigment in the wave’s sky. See: Prussian Blue: Invented Berlin 1704; The Great Wave: Complete Guide. View Great Wave Diptych at DeckArts →

The Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji: The Complete Series

The Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku Sanjūrokkei) is a series of 46 woodblock prints (36 original + 10 supplementary) depicting Mount Fuji from different positions, distances, and conditions. The series’ formal programme: the mountain as the constant; the changing positions and social contexts as the variable. Each print is a specific solution to the compositional problem of depicting the sacred mountain from a specific angle — from rooftops in Edo, from the offshore of Sagami Bay, from rice paddies and tea houses and construction sites and the decks of boats.

The two most celebrated prints:

The Great Wave off Kanagawa (Kanagawa-oki nami-ura, c.1831): The most reproduced print. Ocean wave dwarfing Mount Fuji; three oshiokuri-bune fishing boats; the Kelvin-Helmholtz fluid dynamic instability in the wave’s foam fingers. See: The Great Wave: Complete Guide.

Gaifu kaisei (Fine Wind, Clear Morning), the Red Fuji: The formal companion to the Great Wave: Mount Fuji alone, filling the composition, its south face in early morning summer light in the warm red-orange of the volcanic rock illuminated by the low sun. Where the Great Wave depicts the ocean dwarfing the sacred mountain, the Red Fuji depicts the sacred mountain as the composition’s sole subject, without any competing element. The two prints are the most specific formal dialogue in the series: natural power versus sacred permanence; the momentary wave versus the eternal mountain; cool Prussian blue versus warm red-orange.

The other celebrated prints in the series: Rainstorm Beneath the Summit (the mountain in a violent thunderstorm, lightning and diagonal rain); Under Mannen Bridge at Fukagawa (barrel-makers in the foreground, the mountain visible through the bridge’s curve); Sundai in Edo (the mountain seen above Edo’s rooftops from the city’s highest vantage point). Each print establishes a different specific relationship between the observer’s social position and the mountain’s presence in the background of every Edo resident’s visual world.

The Hokusai Manga: Fifteen Volumes of Japanese Life

The Hokusai Manga (literally: “Hokusai’s random drawings” or “Hokusai’s sketches”) is a 15-volume series of woodblock-printed drawing manuals / visual encyclopedias of Japanese life, published between 1814 and 1878 (the final three volumes were published posthumously). The Manga is not a narrative comic in the modern sense; it is an encyclopedic visual compendium of approximately 4,000 individual drawings of humans, animals, plants, landscapes, architectural details, mythological figures, supernatural beings, and technical objects from everyday Edo life.

The Manga’s specific biographical significance: it represents Hokusai’s attempt to observe and record every visible thing in the world — a universal visual encyclopaedia of the seen. The range of subjects in the Manga is the most complete visual documentation of Edo-period Japanese material culture available in any format: everyday occupations (farmers, fishermen, carpenters, merchants, priests); leisure activities (sumo wrestling, theatre, music, board games); natural history (birds, fish, insects, plants, shells); supernatural beings (ghosts, demons, tengu, kappa); architectural structures; and technical drawings of machines, tools, and instruments. The Manga’s visual ambition is the closest Japanese equivalent to Leonardo’s notebook programme: the attempt to observe and record everything visible. See: British Museum — Hokusai Manga.

“Five More Years”: The Deathbed Statement

Hokusai died on 18 May 1849 (Western calendar; fifth month of the first year of the Kaei era in the Japanese calendar) in Edo, at approximately 88 or 89 years old. His deathbed statement, recorded by his student Tsuyuki Masakazu and widely cited in subsequent Hokusai biography, translates approximately as: “If heaven had only granted me five more years, I could have become a truly great painter.”

The specific Japanese phrasing that Tsuyuki recorded: “Ato jūnen, iya gonennosochi naraba hito no mi no mono to naru bijutsuka ni nareru mono wo.” The translation’s key phrase: “hito no mi no mono to naru” — “to become of a living person” or “to become truly alive,” referring to the specific quality of producing things that have the vitality of living organisms. The quality he said he still lacked at approximately 88–89 is the quality that his most admiring Western critics (Van Gogh, Monet, Debussy) considered the defining achievement of his mature work.

The specific biographical programme of this statement for domestic display: a man who produced approximately one major work per day for approximately 70 years, who made the Great Wave at approximately 70 and continued to produce his most refined work through his 80s, died at approximately 88–89 saying he still needed five more years. His final recorded painting was completed within weeks of his death. His final recorded writing was a poem: “As a ghost / I will set off again / Over the summer fields.” He requested that his grave not be marked with a permanent stone. He did not anchor himself to any single identity, any single location, or any single final statement. Approximately 30 names; approximately 93 houses; approximately 30,000 works; five more years.

Influence: Monet, Van Gogh, Debussy, and La Mer

Claude Monet collected over 200 Japanese prints, many of which were Hokusai’s. His collection at Giverny includes multiple prints from the Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji and from the Manga. The compositional influence of Hokusai’s series paintings (multiple views of the same subject under different conditions) is the most direct precedent for Monet’s own series paintings: the Haystacks series (1890–1891), the Rouen Cathedral series (1892–1894), and the Water Lilies series (1895–1926) all share with the Thirty-Six Views the specific formal programme of depicting the same subject under different light, weather, and seasonal conditions.

Vincent van Gogh made direct oil-paint copies of two Hiroshige woodblock prints in Paris in 1887, establishing the specific technical programme of translating the Japanese flat-colour convention directly into oil paint. He wrote to Theo: “All my work is founded on Japanese art.” The Almond Blossom’s flat Prussian blue sky; the Starry Night’s bold swirling forms derived from the ukiyo-e bold-line convention; the Sunflowers’ flat yellow background: all derive from the Japonisme encounter with Hokusai’s and Hiroshige’s formal vocabulary. See: Van Gogh Letters — vangoghletters.org.

Claude Debussy cited the Great Wave as the visual inspiration for his orchestral suite La Mer (1905), choosing a reproduction of the Great Wave for the cover of the first edition score (Durand, 1905). The specific compositional influence: the Great Wave’s formal programme of depicting ocean movement as a compositional event — not the ocean as a static background but as a dynamic, rhythmically structured, visually specific phenomenon — corresponds to Debussy’s attempt to create musical equivalents of specific visual experiences rather than narrative or emotional programmes. La Mer is music about what water looks and sounds like as a specific physical phenomenon; the Great Wave is a print about what water looks like as a specific physical phenomenon. See: Metropolitan Museum of Art — The Great Wave.

Hokusai for Home Decor

The Great Wave diptych (~$230) is the most universally appropriate, most proportionally versatile, and most biographically inexhaustible Japandi primary in the DeckArts range. The Kuniyoshi Samurai single (~$140) and Kuniyoshi Kabuki Actors diptych (~$230) provide the Japanese ukiyo-e warrior and theatrical traditions as accent programmes. But Hokusai’s biographical programme is the most specifically endurance-appropriate and most permanently inexhaustible of any Japanese artist at DeckArts:

“Approximately 30 names. Approximately 93 moves. Approximately 30,000 works in approximately 70 years — approximately one per day, every day. Made the Great Wave at approximately 70. Died at approximately 88–89 saying: ‘Give me five more years.’ His last poem: ‘As a ghost / I will set off again / Over the summer fields.’ His grave: not marked with a permanent stone.”

This is not a generic biographical summary; it is a specific programme of documented facts that provides a permanent daily reference point for the person who lives with the Great Wave above their sofa, their desk, their kitchen sink, or their cardio equipment. Every training session; every work session; every meal; every morning coffee: the man who made approximately one per day for 70 years and said at 88 he still needed five more years. See: The Great Wave: Complete Guide. View Great Wave Diptych at DeckArts →

Four Complete Hokusai Programmes

Programme 1: The Canonical Japandi Living Room (~$230)
Warm white walls + Great Wave diptych (~$230) above the compact sofa at 155–165 cm + white-oiled oak coffee table + cream linen sofa + one asymmetric Japanese ceramic vase + 2700K art spot. “Approximately one per day for 70 years. Died at 88 saying five more years. The blue is Berliner Blau from Berlin 1704.” Total art: ~$230. See: Japandi Living Room 2026.

Programme 2: The Endurance Gym (~$230)
Warm white primary facing wall + Great Wave diptych (~$230) at 155–165 cm above the primary training station. The endurance programme above the gym: approximately one per day for 70 years; five more years at 88; the Prussian blue from Berlin. Total art: ~$230. See: Wall Art for a Home Gym 2026.

Programme 3: The Prussian Blue Home (~$510)
Warm white throughout + Great Wave diptych (~$230) living room primary + Almond Blossom single (~$140) bedroom above bed + Starry Night single (~$140) reading chair or desk. Three Prussian blue programmes: the Japanese ocean (Hokusai c.1831) + the botanical spring for a newborn (Van Gogh 1890) + the asylum window swirling sky (Van Gogh 1889). All using Berliner Blau. DeckArts ships all three from Berlin. Total art: ~$510. See: Prussian Blue: Berlin 1704.

Programme 4: The Kitchen Endurance Programme (~$140)
Warm white kitchen + Great Wave single (~$140) above the sink at 170–185 cm (ocean above domestic water; minimum 50 cm above the backsplash). “Approximately one per day for 70 years. Five more years at 88. Above the sink.” Total art: ~$140. See: Wall Art for a Kitchen 2026.

FAQ

Who was Hokusai?

Katsushika Hokusai (c.1760–1849): Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock artist; born in Edo (now Tokyo); trained from approximately age 12 in woodblock-cutting workshops; entered the Katsukawa Shunshō studio c.1778; changed his professional name approximately 30 times; moved house approximately 93 times; produced approximately 30,000 surviving works in approximately 70 active years; made the Great Wave at approximately age 70; died at approximately 88–89 saying “If heaven had only granted me five more years, I could have become a truly great painter”; wrote his last poem as a “ghost over the summer fields”; requested no permanent grave marker. The most productive major artist in documented art history. His Great Wave’s blue is Prussian blue (Berorin-ai, “Berlin blue”), invented in Berlin in 1704. DeckArts Great Wave diptych from ~$230. Metropolitan Museum of Art.

What does Hokusai’s name mean?

Hokusai (北斎) is one of approximately 30 professional names Hokusai used across his career; he adopted it in approximately 1798. The most common translation: “Star of the North” or “North Studio”, referring to Myoken Bosatsu, the deity associated with the North Star (Polaris) in Japanese Buddhist tradition. The North Star is the fixed celestial reference point around which all other stars appear to revolve as the earth rotates. The name’s implied meaning: the fixed artistic centre around which all his other name changes and formal transformations revolve. He was approximately 38 years old when he adopted the name. He used it — with interruptions of Taito and other names — for the rest of his career. His final name was Man-ji (c.1834–1849): “Old Man of the Lucky Sign.” DeckArts from ~$230. British Museum — Hokusai.

Article Summary

Katsushika Hokusai (c.1760–1849) is the most productive major artist in documented art history and the most globally influential Japanese artist in Western domestic art recognition. Eight specific biographical facts: (1) Born in Edo c.1760; adopted by the shogunate’s mirror-polisher Nakajima Ise; trained in woodblock-cutting from approximately age 12; (2) Changed his professional name approximately 30 times — each name marking a specific formal transformation; the most significant: Iitsu (c.1820–1834, under which the Great Wave was made); Man-ji (c.1834–1849, “Old Man of the Lucky Sign,” final name); (3) Moved house approximately 93 times — both a deliberate artistic practice (visual habituation disruption) and a consequence of financial and social instability; (4) Produced approximately 30,000 surviving works in approximately 70 active years = approximately 1.17 per day; (5) The Great Wave’s dominant blue is Prussian blue (Berorin-ai, “Berlin blue”), invented in Berlin in 1704 by Diesbach, reached Japan via Dutch VOC through Dejima c.1820; (6) The Great Wave was made at approximately age 70, after 50 years of active production, as part of the Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji commissioned c.1829–1830; (7) Deathbed statement at approximately 88–89 (18 May 1849): “If heaven had only granted me five more years, I could have become a truly great painter”; (8) Last poem: “As a ghost / I will set off again / Over the summer fields.” No permanent grave marker. DeckArts Great Wave diptych (~$230) or single (~$140). Ships from Berlin — the city that invented Berorin-ai in 1704. 30-day return.

About the Author

Stanislav Arnautov is the founder of DeckArts and a creative director from Ukraine based in Berlin. DeckArts produces classical fine art on Grade-A Canadian maple skateboard decks, shipped from Berlin — the city that invented Prussian blue in 1704.

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