Hokusai and Japonisme
By Yasuhiro Tanaka, AJAJ, Japan

The history of psychotherapy itself is not particularly long. If we consider Freud’s psychoanalysis to be the origin of psychotherapy in a narrow sense, its beginnings can be traced to the late 19th century. What made the emergence of psychotherapy possible were the Western European concepts of “mind” and “consciousness” that developed during the latter half of the 19th century.

Having passed through the Age of Discovery and the colonial era, Western European society reached a state of maturity in the 19th century. Consequently, it began to broaden its scope of interest to encompass “other” societies, “different” cultures, and the existence of the “invisible”. Specifically, this period saw the emergence of new academic disciplines such as sociology, ethnology, cultural anthropology, and Oriental studies; the incorporation of artistic techniques from Japanese ukiyo-e （浮世絵）and Chinese landscape painting into Western art; and the discovery of pathogenic bacteria in bacteriology—a development whose historical weight I revisited after reading several works on infectious diseases and virology when speaking alongside a virologist during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The birth of psychology and depth psychology can also be situated within this broader trend. Undoubtedly, what supported or enabled this shift was the self-affirmation of the Western mind in the modern era, accompanied by an expanding capacity for understanding. While one could argue that the discovery of bacteria was driven by technological advances—most notably the microscope—it is ultimately the human mind that paves the way for such material and scientific progress. As is widely recognized, the psyche does not merely “use” external “events”; it actively “creates” them. Jung captured this dynamic with the phrase, “The psyche creates reality every day” (CW 6, par. 78).

“Japonisme” refers to the boom in Japanese art and culture that swept through Europe in the late 19th century, as well as the profound influence this movement exerted on Western art. Katsushika Hokusai (葛飾北斎; 1760-1849) stood at the center of this cultural phenomenon. Ironically, however, it was in Europe that Hokusai first gained true recognition as a major artist. In Japan, he was long regarded merely as a commercial painter and craftsman; indeed, it was not until the turn of the 21st century that his works were officially designated as national cultural heritage. In this light, any discussion of Hokusai’s international reputation and Japonisme must highlight the series of Paris World’s Fairs held in the latter half of the 19th century.

Beginning with the inaugural 1851 Exposition in London, a total of five World’s Fairs were hosted in Paris by 1900: in 1855 (in which Japan did not participate), 1867, 1878, 1889, and 1900. Ukiyo-e made its full-scale international debut in 1867. At the four subsequent Paris World’s Fairs, Japan showcased not only traditional arts and crafts but also geisha, the tea ceremony, and stage actresses. Through these living cultural representatives, a vivid and enduring image of “Japan” became firmly established among the European public.

From around the 1870s, Impressionist painters became passionate admirers of ukiyo-e. These young artists—frequently dubbed the “revolutionaries” of the French art world—sought to capture “light and its tremors, hues and radiance,” making the fresh engagement with “nature” their new frontier. Yet this inspiration was not limited to the Impressionists; looking at surviving works today, one finds that Symbolists and Secessionists alike drew fundamental motifs from Hokusai.

When thinking of Hokusai, masterworks such as Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji (富嶽三十六景) and One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji (富嶽百景) immediately come to mind. However, it was actually Hokusai Manga (北斎漫画) that first brought his work to wide public attention in the West. Originally created as an instructional sketch manual for his students, Hokusai Manga was printed in large quantities. By chance, pages of the manual were used as wrapping and cushioning material for Japanese arts and crafts shipped to Paris, where they caught the eye of Western artists.

The motifs rendered in these sketches—diverse human postures and movements, insects, small animals, and plants—represented subjects that had received little serious attention in classical Western art. Yet, as seen in the glassware and decorative arts of Émile Gallé, motifs such as insects and small animals soon became central features of Art Nouveau craftsmanship.

As noted earlier, the primary subject of Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji (exemplified by “Red Fuji (赤富士)” and “Black Fuji (黒富士)” and One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji is, naturally, Mount Fuji itself. While Fuji and majestic waves were central themes for Hokusai, his acute focus on “small nature” (micro-nature) offers a particularly illuminating point of comparison with Western culture.

Compared to the relatively young tradition of Western landscape painting, the Eastern tradition is far older. According to Akiko Mabuchi, curator of the exhibition Hokusai and Japonisme: “In the West, landscape painting emerged as an independent genre in 17th-century Holland and subsequently developed within the Romantic movements of various countries. However, it was precisely during the era of Japonisme that attention began to turn toward ‘small nature.’”

This focus on “small nature” is vividly apparent in Hokusai’s bird-and-flower paintings (花鳥画kacho-ga). This genre goes beyond mere static depictions of flora and fauna; it captures the dynamic vitality of natural life—flowers, birds, insects, and small creatures. As seen in his renderings of waves and waterfalls, water was also a “living entity” for Hokusai. He sought to freeze and depict the instantaneous movement of all living natural things.

Addressing this quality, a Western art critic noted: “…What we feel first is surprise at the Japanese people’s profound fondness for ‘beasts,’ which are given only a minor role in Western art.” In the West, animal painting traditionally derived from hunting scenes and was rooted in a perspective on nature fundamentally distinct from bird-and-flower painting, which treats plants and animals as a gateway to evoking nature as a whole.

Furthermore, while Western tradition includes still life (nature morte—literally “dead nature”), these compositions typically feature cut plants arranged in vases. In Hokusai’s work, by contrast, flowers remain rooted in the soil, reaching toward the sky; they bend in the wind, surrounded by flitting butterflies and resting frogs. This is beautifully illustrated in prints such as “Irises and a Grasshopper”(1831–33), “Morning Glories and a Frog” (1831–33), and “Peonies and a Butterfly” (1830–34)—works where the grasshopper and frog are so subtly integrated that the viewer must search closely to discover them.

Turning to his depiction of waves, “Fuji above the Sea (海上の不二)” from One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji, alongside “The Great Wave off Kanagawa (神奈川沖浪裏),” captivated Western artists. With a distant Mount Fuji in the background, the foreground is dominated by a cresting wave about to break. Like a wild creature baring its fangs, the white foam freezes in a moment of gathered force, while the spray transforms into a flock of plovers bursting from the tip of the wave. Here again, the wave functions as a fully living creature.

Hokusai’s view of nature and his delicate depiction of flora and fauna offer critical insights when considering clinical psychology and psychotherapy in Japan. In the therapeutic context, animals and insects frequently appear in the dreams and sandplay expressions of Japanese clients, as do natural phenomena such as typhoons, floods, and tsunamis. This contrasts sharply with a traditional Western paradigm that seeks to master and reign over nature. In the Japanese worldview, human beings are embedded within nature; nature and the surrounding landscape are inherently immanent. From this stance, the psychological objective is not to assert or isolate an autonomous ego/subject, but rather to remain attuned to and immersed within the natural landscape. Hokusai’s work vividly demonstrates what lies beyond that psychological threshold. While his late hand-painted works (肉筆画) further illuminate this boundary, a fuller exploration of them must be reserved for a future study due to space constraints.

As Akiko Mabuchi notes, the modern Japanese novelist Kafu Nagai (永井荷風) succinctly summarized why Hokusai held such an enduring fascination for the Western mind. Nagai identified two main reasons: “First, the range of subjects Hokusai depicted was so vast and boundless that it seemed almost miraculous to their eyes,” and “Second, Hokusai’s remarkably realistic style transcended the traditional boundaries of Japanese painting, past and present.”

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