{"id":15831,"date":"2014-07-25T15:12:20","date_gmt":"2014-07-25T19:12:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=15831"},"modified":"2018-07-05T10:11:26","modified_gmt":"2018-07-05T14:11:26","slug":"never-far-below-the-surface-bubbling-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2014\/07\/never-far-below-the-surface-bubbling-out\/","title":{"rendered":"Never Far Below the Surface, Bubbling Out"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Hokusai:<\/a><\/p>\n

[Image: <\/em>Lion and Sculptor, by Katsushika Hokusai. This is<\/em> not one of the 200-odd lion drawings referred to below, but I do like the spirit it shows. See the note at the foot of this post for more information.]<\/em><\/p>\n

From whiskey river<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n

Hokusai<\/strong><\/p>\n

Anger is a bitter lock
\nBut you can turn it.<\/p>\n

Hokusai aged 83
\nsaid,
\nTime to do my lions.<\/p>\n

Every morning
\nuntil he died<\/p>\n

219 days later
\nhe made
\na lion.<\/p>\n

Wind came gusting from the northwest.<\/p>\n

Lions swayed
\nand leapt
\nfrom the crests<\/p>\n

of the pine trees
\nonto<\/p>\n

the snowy road
\nor crashed
\ntogether<\/p>\n

over his hut,
\ntheir white paws<\/p>\n

mauling stars
\non the way down.<\/p>\n

I continue to draw
\nhoping for a peaceful day,<\/p>\n

said Hokusai
\nas they thudded past.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Anne Carson [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n

From the age of six, I had a mania for drawing the shapes of things. When I was fifty I had published a universe of designs. But all I have done before the the age of seventy is not worth bothering with. At seventy five I’ll have learned something of the pattern of nature, of animals, of plants, of trees, birds, fish and insects. When I am eighty you will see real progress. At ninety I shall have cut my way deeply into the mystery of life itself. At one hundred, I shall be a marvelous artist. At one hundred and ten, everything I create; a dot, a line, will jump to life as never before. To all of you who are going to live as long as I do, I promise to keep my word. I am writing this in my old age. I used to call myself Hokusai, but today I sign my self ‘The Old Man Mad About Drawing.’<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Hokusai Katsushika [source<\/em><\/a> (in slightly different words)<\/em>])<\/p>\n

…and<\/a> (italicized portion; excerpt):<\/p>\n

11<\/strong><\/p>\n

Like clouds, once gone in their long drift,
\nthere’s no coming back—<\/span>
\nAnd like the wind that moves them, we stop
\nWherever we please, or wherever we come to be,
\nEach one in his proper place,
\nnot too near, not too far<\/span>
\nFrom That’s okay and No one was ever interested enough.<\/p>\n

How many years have slipped through our hands?<\/em>
\n At least as many as the constellations we still can identify.<\/em>
\n The quarter moon, like a light skiff,<\/em>
\n floats out of the mist-remnants<\/span><\/em>
\n Of last night’s hard rain.<\/em>
\n It, too, will slip through our fingers<\/em>
\n with no ripple, without us in it.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

How is it it’s taken me almost a lifetime to come to the fact
\nThat heaven and earth have no favorites
\nin either extreme?<\/span>
\nBits of us set out, at one time or another, in both directions,
\nSleeping fitfully, heads on our fists,
\nNow close together and warm, now cold in the south sky.<\/p>\n

Each one arrives in his own fashion,
\neach one with his birthmark<\/span>
\nBeginning to take shape and shine out
\nAnd lead forth like a lead lamp.
\nLook for us in the black spaces, somewhere in the outer dark.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Charles Wright [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Not from whiskey river<\/em>:<\/p>\n

One of the most delightfully eccentric figures in the history of art is the Japanese painter and woodcut designer who has come to be known as Hokusai. During his eighty-nine years, Hokusai lived in at least ninety different houses and used some fifty names. The name that stuck for posterity — Hokusai — means “Star of the Northern Constellation”…<\/p>\n

As Hokusai\u2019s fame spread, he was often invited to give public drawing demonstrations. Legends of his virtuosity abound. On one occasion, the story goes, he stood before the assembled crowd outside a temple and drew an immense image of the Buddha, using a brush as big as a broom. Another time, he drew birds in flight on a single grain of rice. Hokusai\u2019s sense of humor, never far below the surface, came bubbling out when he was asked to perform for the Shogun (the military governor). As onlookers gathered at the palace, Hokusai spread a large piece of paper on the floor, painted blue watercolor waves across it, then took a live rooster, dipped its feet in red paint, and allowed it to run across the painting. Bowing respectfully, he announced to the Shogun that his creation was a picture of red maple leaves floating down the river.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Mark Getlein [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

Audubon<\/strong><\/p>\n

Audubon perfected a new way of drawing birds that he called his.
\nOn the bottom of each watercolor he put “drawn from nature”
\nwhich meant he shot the birds<\/p>\n

and took them home to stuff and paint them.
\nBecause he hated the unvarying shapes
\nof traditional taxidermy<\/p>\n

he built flexible armatures of bent wire and wood
\non which he arranged bird skin and feathers–
\nor sometimes<\/p>\n

whole eviscerated birds–
\nin animated poses.
\nNot only his wiring but his lighting was new.<\/p>\n

Audubon colors dive in through your retina
\nlike a searchlight
\nroving shadowlessly up and down the brain<\/p>\n

until you turn away.
\nAnd you do turn away.
\nThere is nothing to see.<\/p>\n

You can look at these true shapes all day and not see the bird.
\nAudubon understands light as an absence of darkness,
\ntruth as an absence of unknowing.<\/p>\n

It is the opposite of a peaceful day in Hokusai.
\nImagine if Hokusai had shot and wired 219 lions
\nand then forbade his brush to paint shadow.<\/p>\n

“We are what we make ourselves,” Audubon told his wife
\nwhen they were courting.
\nIn the salons of Paris and Edinburgh<\/p>\n

where he went to sell his new style
\nthis Haitian-born Frenchman
\nlit himself<\/p>\n

as a noble rustic American
\nwired in the cloudless poses of the Great Naturalist.
\nThey loved him<\/p>\n

for the “frenzy and ecstasy”
\nof true American facts, especially
\nin the second (more affordable) octavo edition (Birds of America<\/em>, 1844).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Anne Carson [ibid.<\/em>])<\/p>\n

__________________<\/p>\n

About the image:<\/strong> One of twenty-five works by Hokusai<\/a> (collectively referred to as “Picture Book in the Katsushika Style”) in the online collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I haven’t found a name or description for this specific image, although I’m sure someone knows them; my referring to this as “Lion and Sculptor” is almost arbitrary. The human figure in this print is as much a samurai as a sculptor or other artist — and what’s up with the hooves?!? — and may be either attacking or, well, making<\/em> the lion.<\/p>\n

Hokusai<\/a> is a favorite artist here at RAMH<\/em>. He created the “internationally famous,” much-reproduced (and even -parodied) work The Great Wave off Kanagawa<\/em><\/a>. His Fifty-Three Stations of Tokaido: 44 (Yokkaichi)<\/em> served as the “somebody chases a hat” annual image heading the anniversary RAMH<\/em> post<\/a>, in 2013.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Image: Lion and Sculptor, by Katsushika Hokusai. This is not one of the 200-odd lion drawings referred to below, but I do like the spirit it shows. See the note at the foot of this post for more information.] From whiskey river: Hokusai Anger is a bitter lock But you can turn it. Hokusai aged […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[247,1393,250,251],"tags":[941,3811,3840,3841,3842],"class_list":{"0":"post-15831","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-ruminations","7":"category-whiskey-river-runningaftermyhat","8":"category-art","9":"category-poetry-writing_cat","10":"tag-charles-wright","11":"tag-anne-carson","12":"tag-katsushika-hokusai","13":"tag-mark-getlein","14":"tag-john-james-audubon","15":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-47l","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15831"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15831\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20451,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15831\/revisions\/20451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}