I don’t have much to say today and am running late plus the Russia-Finland hockey matchup in the Olympics is beginning as I speak. So I am greatly distracted today. But t came across this image from the Japanese master Hokusai that I wanted to share. I had a post several years back that featured the famed waves for which Hokusai is best known. They are such strong images of the power and rhythm of nature that it is easy to see why they are his signature works. But when I saw this quiet still-life of a fish with a few shells from 1840 I truly understood how revelatory this work must have been to the western artists, such as Whistler and Van Gogh among many others,who discovered it a generation later.
It has a wonderful delicacy in its color and it’s also simple and elegant, maintaining an extraordinary modernity through the past 170 or so years. It always seems like it is in the now which is that intangible that most artists , myself included, seek. It is unlike anything you would have found in the west in 1840 yet seems totally at home now. Just a wonderful image to ponder.
Redtree Times 
Even the mackerel seems happy to have been included. Don’t you think he’s smiling? What a wonderful reminder to visit famous artists now and then to explore their entire body of work. I always think “Hokusai = The Wave”, but clearly there’s much more to appreciate.
It really is satisfying to sometimes dig a little deeper past the signature works of any artist. In many cases, such as with Hokusai, it gives you a greater appreciation of their entire body of work and fills out their voice. Yes, that mackerel does seem perhaps a little too happy.