“From around the age of six, I had the habit of sketching from life. I became an artist, and from fifty on began producing works that won some reputation, but nothing I did before the age of seventy was worthy of attention. At seventy-three, I began to grasp the structures of birds and beasts, insects and fish, and of the way plants grow. If I go on trying, I will surely understand them still better by the time I am eighty-six, so that by ninety I will have penetrated to their essential nature. At one hundred, I may well have a positively divine understanding of them, while at one hundred and thirty, forty, or more I will have reached the stage where every dot and every stroke I paint will be alive. May Heaven, that grants long life, give me the chance to prove that this is no lie.”
Hokusai

Katsushika Hokusai (c. October 31, 1760 – May 10, 1849) was a Japanese artist, ukiyo-e painter, and printmaker of the Edo period.
Born in Edo (modern day Tokyo), Hokusai is best known as author of the woodblock print series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, which includes the iconic print, The Great Wave off Kanagawa.
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