Hokusai and Henri Riviers

Wavelength- A Personal Reminiscence, because great stories are not found only in books by famous authors.

The Great Wave of Kanagawa- by Katsushika Hokusai (31 October 1760 – 10 May 1849)

Anyone interested in art would recognize this as the great wave off Kanagawa by Hokusai. Or would they? In spite of its influence internationally, Japanese art still continues to be elitist and a niche thing. We come across images of paintings by Van Gogh and discussion of the European greats, but little is mentioned about the influence of ukiyo e art of Japan on Van Gogh and many other artists of Europe.

The 36 views of Fuji which has become synonymous with Hokusai’s name influenced a famous French painter Henri Riviere to paint the 36 views of the Eiffel Tower. I am extremely grateful to my friend Jean Francois for enlightening me about this and sending me the link to the 36 views of the Eiffel tower. “Van Gogh was living at a time when Japanese art was new and trendy in Europe, so yes, he copied some prints in oil painting. If you are interested, you can see here the work of an artist I like that was greatly influenced by Hokusai, but instead of making views of mount Fuji, he made some of the Eiffel tower:” ( Francois, in a letter to me)

Plate 10: Du Boulevard de Clichy

Plate 2: Les Chantiers de la Tour Eiffel

My days in Japan would have been just a tour of an unique place had it not been for my friends and the ladies of the International Forum, who invited me on an exploration of Yamate Cho , which included a visit to the Rose garden, a view of the Yamashita Bay from the hilltop and ended in one of the fancy wooden restaurants where we had tea and scones. Yokohama, known for being the entry port to Japan and a favourite with westerners, literally means beautiful bay.

However, I would have never known about the famous Japanese artists or visit the many museums and art galleries had it not been for  Jean Francois  Thomas who was my colleague at the institute for English studies where we taught Communicative and Business English to adults. He soon became our family friend. Apart from the Museum of Modern Art (  MOMA) in Tokyo we visited many small galleries and exhibitions, one of which was in Otah, where I first saw Hokusai’s sketches. I was so intrigued by the witty sketches and the social commentary that they contained, that I was fired by a zeal to see more paintings by the Japanese masters. And so I visited the exhibition on paintings by Hiroshige, who , unlike Hokusai was famous for his landscapes.

Apart from the museums, Jean insisted that I visit Kamakura, a Buddhist monastic town which I subsequently visited many times, also with my parents when they visited us. However, the trip with Jean acquainted me not only with the shrines but the food, among them the croquettes filled with cream. Jean is a foodie, a connoisseur of food would be a better description and quite a good cook. I discovered that the Japanese people were like us Bengalis not only because of their love of fish and rice but also ‘telebhaja.’ Contrary to our perception of Japanese food as being always healthy, which it generally is, it also includes deep fried fish and veggies called tempura and katsu which is kind of what we call cutlet, on a regular basis. Wondering which food we would taste that day, Jean and I made our way through an alley after visiting the shrines and savouring our zen experience. Kamakura is a tourist spot and always has a festive air about it. It was high summer and people seemed to melt at around 26 degrees. We approached a shop with a sloping tiled roof. The shop was painted white with black beams and awnings. Jean stepped up and said croquette ‘niku to kirimu’ meaning  croquette filled with minced meat and cream. I went for my favourite ‘sakana to kirimu’ which were croquettes stuffed with fish and cream. We gorged on them and took some for home.

 Whenever Jean came to our house for dinner he raved about the Indian food, I cooked. He always brought something interesting, an unusual lager or wine, or dessert. Once he had fulfilled a personal goal of visiting China. After returning he came to dinner .He produced a box of chocolates among other things, from a silk museum he had visited there, which resembled cocoons, outwardly white but were actually chocolate covered almonds. Once he was determined to make me taste a pastry from Dallyou, his favourite French cake shop. He was very happy that there was one in Tokyo. I too picked up some methods of cooking like poaching a fish from him, and making vichyssoise, the cold soup which we relished in the height of a Japanese summer.

Before writing this I asked him if I may mention his contribution to my discovery of food and art in Japan. He had a faint memory of the visit to Otah as almost 17 years have passed since but he was so kind to send me the links and information on the impact of Japanese art on European greats. I had no knowledge of the 36 views of the Eiffel Tower. I had seen a you tube video about Hokusai’s influence on Van Gogh, but Jean had this to say, “Van Gogh was living at a time when Japanese art was new and trendy in Europe, so yes, he copied some prints in oil painting. If you are interested, you can see here the work of an artist I like that was greatly influenced by Hokusai, but instead of making views of Mount Fuji, Japan’s revered Fujisan, he made some of the Eiffel tower:” and sent the link which I have included at the end.

Being in Japan is not like being in any other place. Without friends to show you things, much of the place would remain unexperienced. A little knowledge of the language too is indispensable. As the Yokohama city library was just behind my house, I began to spend my mornings there. I taught myself katakana. Tina Wells’s book ‘Easy Katakana’ was extremely helpful as all the loan words of foreign origin e.g soup which have entered the Japanese language are written in the Katakana script. This helped me to order food, at restaurants among other things.  Moreover, I used to haunt the supermarkets studying the labels and trying to read the information about the ingredients. In some shops the sales persons asked me in a friendly manner if I was a student. I soon felt welcomed by their cheerful ‘ Irrashaimashe’, which in Japanese, is welcome.The lessons offered by my husband’s office too helped greatly and my Japanese teacher really wanted me to appear for the next level saying that I was good with languages, but I soon became a mother and everything else took a backseat.

https://armstrongfineart.com/blogs/news/henri-riviere-the-thirty-six-views-of-the-eiffel-tower

Visit the site For all the 36 views of the Eiffel Tower painted by Riviere

And learn more about Hokusai and the ukiyo-e style of drawing from this video.