The Hokusai Museum in Nagano Prefecture will hold an exhibition of Hokusai Katsushika's abbreviated paintings titled “Obliterated Brushstrokes, Tracing Lines” from April 12 to May 18, 2025.

Hokusai devoted himself to the creation of picture handbooks from his fifties onward, and his masterpiece “Hokusai Manga” is an abbreviated picture handbook influenced by Keisai Huagata's “Abbreviated Style of Painting.”

The technique of abbreviated painting is a way of capturing the form of an object with concise brush strokes, and people, animals, plants, and flowers are vividly depicted in this style. This exhibition introduces the fascination of abbreviated sketches from printed works in the museum collection.