Katsushika Hokusai / National Museum of Asian Art, Smithsonian Institution, Freer Collection, Gift of Charles Lang Freer, F1900.47
These images are based on the high resolution facsimile produced by the Tsuzuri Project. Unauthorized copying, duplication, or transfer of these images is strictly prohibited.
Thunder God
High-resolution facsimiles
- Material
- printed on washi paper
- Period of creation
- Tsuzuri Project Stage 12 2018–2019
- Recipient
- The Sumida Hokusai Museum（Sumida Ward）
Original
- Artist
- Katsushika Hokusai
- Historical era
- Edo (19th century)
- Material
- ink, color on paper
- Medium
- hanging scroll
- Size
- H126.9 × W53.8 cm
- Collection
- Smithsonian's National Museum of Asian Art
Description
Surrounded by a group of swirling dark clouds, the Thunder God is sounding his drum on his back. The two red flashes coming fast over his head and black splashes remind us of rough weather. The Thunder God has been familiar to the Japanese since ancient times. While many pictures of the Thunder God inspire affection, such as the Wind God and Thunder God Screens by Tawaraya Sotatsu, this work by Hokusai makes us recognize again that the deity was something to be feared. Although we know that he produced it at 88, he does not seem to have weakened at all. Rather than that, he makes us strongly sense his energy, which remained inexhaustible even in the last years of his life. The former owner of the painting, the Oriental fine art historian Ernest Fenollosa, highly praised this picture as the best of all the Japanese fine art works inspired by the Thunder God that he had ever seen.
