International Women's Day March 8th, 2022 - Movie Review Kurara: The Dazzling Life of Hokusai's daughter

I am sure it was no coincidence that the film Kurara, showed up on my amazon feed last night since it was the week of International Women's Day. My second bachelor's degree is in Art from Rutger's the State University, Camden Campus, and my primary study was in printmaking, so I was a big fan of Hokusai and did many wood block prints over the years, some before I ever went to college. Many children have been introduced to linoleum block printing and I had tried that as well as making my own stamps (introduced to children through potato printing in grade school) but often using erasers which is still fun! In the 1970's there was a big resurgence in stamping art. Anyhow, I NEVER knew anything about Hokusai's daughter which isn't surprising considering the invisible daughters hidden in the studios of so many famous artists.

It comes as a revelation to many Art students that the great srtists had training studios where they taught apprentices the art and craft of painting (or bookbinding or whatever the art or craft might be) and that often, the apprentices did parts of the master artist's paintings and the master artist did the finishing touches. This was especially true of the exceptionallly labor intensive art of Japanese Wood Block Printing. If you have never seen this kind of art, I urge you to look it up now or right after you read this post. You are in for a treat!

Arguably, Hokusai was the most internationally famed artist of wood block printing, painting, or actually, Japanese Art in general! Can you name anyone else off the top of your head? But despite my having studied his work and bought many books of his works, the most famous of which might be 36 Views of Mount Fuji, and his most famous single work has to be the Great Wave! But I never heard of his daughter.

As I learned from the beautiful film Kurara, the daughter Hokusai O-ie, not only was his primary assistant in the later decades of his life (he lived into his 90's), but an accomplished artist in her own right. I looked up her work and it is beautiful! and Different! I especially enjoyed the works where she focused on light areas emerging from darkness, with lantern light, as though someone were peering into a lighted room from a night shrouded hidden place. The film itself is filled with gorgeous scenes. If you have ever seen the famouse movie or read the novel about the Geisha, you will love this film.

While I am on the subject of the hidden hand of the woman artist, let me mention Lady Murasaki Shibaku, whom I discovered during a debate with a literature teacher at Glassboro State College during the 2nd Wave of the Feminisht Movement in the early 70's. I was taking a course called Survey of World Literature, and found not ONE female author. When I brought this up to the professor he countered that there weren't any. Off hand I could mention a few like Edith Wharton and Jane Austen, and the Bronte sisters, but he had arguments for why they didn't count, but he advissed me to make a bibliography of great women authors with the reasons why they should be included and I spent the summer doing just that. It was a great learning experience for me but not so much for the professor. He missed the point and added titles with women's names by men authors such as Nana, by Emile Zola, but no women authors. At that time, I discovered that The Tale of Gengi written in 1000 to 1020 was considred by most literature experts to be the first psychological novel ever written. That should count for something I thought! It isn't easy to move the sediment heavy minds of old professors, and sometimes it takes a great wearing down by weather. Of course, many years later, all kinds of courses were offered that gave women artists and writers an addenda status and I took those courses. The best one I took in Art was taught by Dr. Wendy Slatkin at Rutger's, who wrote the book Women Artists.

Happy International Women's Day! We are half the world! Jo Ann