Hokusai: An Animated Sketchbook

Given that he started drawing aged six and died aged eighty-nine, some 30,000-odd drawings later, it was always going to be nigh on impossible to do his career too much justice in five minutes, but with a charming score and a selection of some of his immaculately detailed woodblock animations it does open a door to encourage further investigation. Apparently his talents ran from drawing two perfect sparrows onto a single grain of rice to painting something so large an horse could walk through it, and the narration that augments this rapid-fire selection of imagery fills in some of the gaps in his extensive portfolio and intrigues us to look at more of his delicately crafted, shaded and lifelike works of art.

While far from a household name in the West, Hokusai was legendary to the Japanese for his amazingly well-crafted wood cuts. His most famous involves a highly stylized wave, though in his lifetime he made an absolutely huge number of prints. I first became aware of his skills when I visited the Sackler and Freer Galleries of Art in Washington, DC, as they were having a Hokusai exhibition.

This short British film is a wonderful overview of the artist's life and work--and also his philosophy about art. It deservedly won the BAFTA award (roughly the equivalent to an Oscar) in 1979 int the Best Short Factual Film category.