”I have this artistic idea but not the skills to achieve it to the standard I want.”
congrats! Now you have a motif! A recurring theme! A focus for your art! Something to haunt you!
Seventeen still lives of dandelions? Three hundred poems about grief? A sketchbook dedicated to your grandmother’s house? Two books trying to unravel the complexities of familial relationships?
Don’t let the fear of it not being perfect on the first try stop you from being Weird About It!
Please view Hokusai's gradual working towards The Great Wave Off Kanagawa, over a period of 39 years.
An early exploration of the themes Hokusai would keep coming back to is Spring in Enoshima, done in 1793 when he was 33. The wave is small and there are no boats, but Mt Fuji is clear in the background, and Enoshima is in Kanagawa, so we are clearly beginning to work towards something here.
A second pass, eleven years later in 1803 when he was 44. The title of this one begins to get more familiar: The View of Honmoku Off Kanazawa. It has a towering wave over a smaller boat, but Mt Fuji is not present, and the boat is considerably larger and has a sail. But the feeling of danger in the wave and the smallness of the boat are here, and of course the general composition is definitely recognizable.
This is A View Of Express Delivery Boats, done in 1805, merely two years later at age 46. Here we find the wave and the boats almost exactly as we'll find them in The Great Wave Off Kanagawa, though Mt Fuji isn't present, and the location is uncertain. And it's a good picture! The wave is threatening, the boats are small -- but the feeling of "ocean" isn't really there yet, is it? It's unlikely this picture would have become a classic for the ages. But that's okay, there's still time.
And here we have it, a full 26 years later, done by Hokusai in 1831 at the age of 72. The Great Wave Off Kanagawa, one of the most recognizable pieces of art in the world. The boats are there, the mountain is there, the wave is there, and the FEELING is there. He did it! He reached the apex of his ongoing motif and theme!
Or did he? Because the whole point of a motif is not that you're striving to get to the perfect version of it, the one idealized image you carried in your head all along, and when it is done, you are also done. Hokusai is on record at the age of 73 saying he'd only just begun to feel like he was learning how to draw things properly, and that "if I keep up my efforts, I will have even a better understanding when I was 80 and by 90 will have penetrated to the heart of things. At 100, I may reach a level of divine understanding, and if I live decades beyond that, everything I paint — dot and line — will be alive." He had drawn The Great Wave, but he didn't believe he was finished -- he thought that he was still just beginning to get started.
And he wasn't finished with his ocean motif, either. Please check out his Mt Fuji At Sea, done in 1834 at the age of 75.
It's all there; Mt Fuji, the ocean, the wave. The boats are gone, but replaced with birds, flying with the wave instead of fighting against it. It's not as famous as The Great Wave Off Kanagawa, but that's not what motifs are for -- each successive work does not have to surpass the previous in terms of success, especially in terms of external success. They're there for you to keep playing with, keep remixing and re-experiencing, for as long as you think you have something to say.
I also want everybody to know that Google and most of the internet think that all of those paintings bar the last one are called "The Great Wave Off Kanagawa", so I had to do a sort of middling deep dive just to find their actual names. And then I was like "I don't think those translations are very accurate", so I went on a second quest to retranslate them, which was particularly difficult with painting three (A View Of Express Delivery Boats) because for some reason he titled that one entirely in hiragana, and it's all archaic words that were very hard to chase down without their corresponding kanji. Google suggested "the push-off is a transportation route", which wasn't particularly helpful.
All of which is to say that I probably spent a bit too much time on all of that, but it was fun; and at least I know what those paintings are called now.
since i'm insane and think about this game wayyyy too much i realised the characters for every two cantos have kind of paralleled each other, forgive me if i'm misremembering stuff since i haven't played some of them in a while
canto i – gregor, accepted he's a 'reject'. in the smoke war, aligned with the city and fell in line to do what he was told;
canto ii – rodion, still wants to be liked so badly. joined a faction against the city … and. well. didn't do what she was told
canto iii – sinclair, betrayed his family… because of his dislike for their obsession with a technology he wanted destroyed, eradicated;
canto iv – yi sang, betrayed by his family following his creation of an incredible new technology
canto v – ishmael, alone and aimless and full of hate. solely motivated by her all-consuming goal of killing ahab;
canto vi – heathcliff, not alone but frequently dealt with people who didn't care for him… except catherine (and nelly), the person he loved most and was determined to be better for
canto vii – don quixote, wanted so badly to die, and found the desire to live upon finding a dream to steadfastly hold onto;
canto viii – hong lu, who had no dreams or motivations, save for wanting to understand so badly why so many people want to live
and the next two cantos are about… "mother who seems to feel most alive when she's killing", and "man who seems devoid of emotions, and may have killed his mother"…? hmmmm
i'm particularly ill about heathmael and have a post drafted about them that will probably never see the light of day. because i played vii and viii more recently, they're fresher in my mind so i keep thinking about stuff. i'm really summarising a lot here, but
don quixote
family hated her, but, to the elder, she was the favourite
—said elder wanted her to have fantastic adventures.
(as sancho) she was very indifferent…
… and she wound up becoming very invested in her father's dream.
she had immortality thrust upon her…
…and is now the only one that remains out of all of them, and is saddled with all of their hunger.
killed the patriarchal figure (who wanted to die, at that point)
hong lu
family hated him, but, to the elder(s), he was the favourite
—said elders wanted him to have fantastic adventures.
(as baoyu) was so caring, but forced to be indifferent…
… and thus believed there was no reason to have any dreams.
was meant to seek immortality…
…but chose to embrace impermanence, and trapped the elders to live out the last of their lives unable to interfere with anyone else's.
killed the matriarchal figure (who was trying to become immortal)
and both cantos had themes of filial piety and immortality and what we do with the time that we have… augh
am i insane? (like, am i misremembering any of this? i feel crazy? i love project moon's writing so much)
Hate to shill myself (again), but between rent and vet bills for my cat, I'm in a bit of a tight spot financially rn. Anyone who can commission me or could share this around, please consider doing so. https://keioschaoscomms.carrd.co/
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