HOKUSAI'S BRUSH is a companion to the Freer Gallery of Art's yearlong exhibition that celebrates the artist's fruitful career. The Freer, home to the world's largest collection of paintings by Japanese artist, Katsushika Hokusai, has put on view for the first time in a decade his incredible and rarely seen sketches, drawings and paintings. Together with essays that explore his life and career, HOKUSAI'S BRUSH offers an in-depth breakdown of each painting, providing amazing commentary that highlight Hokusai's mastery and detail. While best known for his woodblock print series "Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji" and particularly the widely recognisable "The Great Wave off Kanagawa," Hokusai is said to have produced 30,000 pieces of art. He lived until he was ninety years old and his last words were reportedly to say that if heaven were to grant him another five or ten years, then he could become a true painter. Every stunning page of HOKUSAI'S BRUSH is a testament to the humility of that statement, emphasising his artistry and skill, the likes of which shaped the Impressionist movement by inspiring artists such as Monet, Degas and van Gogh.

Three essays by leading scholars in the field of Japanese art explore Sesson's unique existence and unconventional painting style, as well as how scholarly perceptions of the artist have changed over time. Fifty-three entries highlight major works by Sesson as well as those by other artists before, during, and after his time. Sesson Shukei stands out as an anomaly in the history of Japanese art. Among the vast canon of Japanese ink painting, Sesson departed from convention. Inspired by the untamed landscape of the eastern regions of Japan, Sesson led a peripatetic existence caused by a lifetime of experiencing warfare and upheaval-yet he created some of the most visually striking images in the history of Japanese ink painting. This publication explores new ways of understanding and interpreting one of Japan's greatest painters and the world that shaped him.

A lush portrait introducing one of the most important Japanese artists of the Edo period Best known for his paintings Irises and Red and White Plum Blossoms, Ogata Korin (1658-1716) was a highly successful artist who worked in many genres and media-including hanging scrolls, screen paintings, fan paintings, lacquer, textiles, and ceramics. Combining archival research, social history, and visual analysis, Frank Feltens situates Korin within the broader art culture of early modern Japan. He shows how financial pressures, client preferences, and the impulse toward personal branding in a competitive field shaped Korin's approach to art-making throughout his career. Feltens also offers a keen visual reading of the artist's work, highlighting the ways Korin's artistic innovations succeeded across media, such as his introduction of painterly techniques into lacquer design and his creation of ceramics that mimicked the appearance of ink paintings. This book, the first major study of Korin in English, provides an intimate and thought-provoking portrait of one of Japan's most significant artists.