
A 17th-Century Japanese Artist Is Once Again Making Waves - prismatic
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/renowned-forgotten-japanese-artist-making-waves-180957491/?no-ist
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jrapdx3
Quite interesting. I am familiar with Hokusai who was active in the 18/19th
centuries, and who is considered a direct influence on the European
impressionists in the late 1800's.

Hokusai's iconic "Great Wave off Kanagawa" was a form used by some
impressionists in their own work. Though the article didn't discuss it,
there's definitely similarity to the "Great Wave" in the earlier work by
Sōtatsu. I assume there was a flow of influence over the century between the
artists' lives that emerged in Hokusai's imagery.

Goes to show that much of the time new ideas are not completely original. We
all borrow from others, whether or not we realize it. Being reminded of it
from time to time can help us stay grounded in reality.

~~~
alejohausner
From T.S. Eliot's "East Comer":

So here I am, in the middle way, having had twenty years— Twenty years largely
wasted, the years of l'entre deux guerres Trying to learn to use words, and
every attempt Is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure Because
one has only learnt to get the better of words For the thing one no longer has
to say, or the way in which One is no longer disposed to say it. And so each
venture Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate With shabby equipment
always deteriorating In the general mess of imprecision of feeling,
Undisciplined squads of emotion. And what there is to conquer By strength and
submission, has already been discovered Once or twice, or several times, by
men whom one cannot hope To emulate—but there is no competition— There is only
the fight to recover what has been lost And found and lost again and again:
and now, under conditions That seem unpropitious. But perhaps neither gain nor
loss. For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.

