Hokusai – Obrazy do kapsy / Pocket Paintings

The Pocket Paintings series presents the work of artists from the collection of the National Gallery in Prague, selected in conjunction with current exhibitions as well as permanent collection displays, thus showing different approaches to artistic thinking across the centuries. The publications in this series cultivate the art of observation and close looking, drawing on interesting details of paintings and comparing them with other visual materials, reproductions, or works by other artists. The visual content is accompanied by a brief text composed of statements by artists or art critics, as well as questions encouraging further reflection. The books also include a poster featuring an artwork or a detail of it at a 1:1 scale, enabling further exploration of the works.

The fourteenth instalment in the series introduces the work of the Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849). Folios from the series Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji and One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji reveal Hokusai's exceptional ability to see the world in transformations and relationships, to capture both detail and the whole, and to continually push the compositional and colour possibilities of printmaking. This Pocket Paintings volume offers a moment of stillness, a focused gaze, and a reflection on the beauty and power of nature, on the fragility of human existence, and on all that endures. The publication marks the opening of the exhibition The Art of Asia Across Space and Time.