I'm A Famous Artist. And I LOVE Octopuses

Before we get rolling, do you have to put a Not Safe For Work warning when the pictures in question are works of art created by some of the best known artists in history? If I do, here's your warning. Turn back now and clear your browser cache. I don't think you need to. I mean, kids are allowed to see Michelangelo's David, so why should I have to warn you when it comes to the images here? Maybe it's like one of webcomics I read says, "Porn is anything you masturbate while looking at. Your ceiling is porn." Anyways...

You may not know the name, but you know his work. The man is Katsushika Hokusai, and he's so famous that his name doesn't even set off my spell-check. He was an artist specializing in woodcuts (although he did use other techniques, and used them well) in Japan during the Edo period (Edo does set off the spell-check... that's funny), which ran from 1603 to 1868.  He worked from 1774, when he was 14, until he died at the age of 87.  He is probably best known for his series, "Thirty-six Views Of Mount Fuji", which due to popular demand was eventually expanded to forty-six views.  No, that's not a joke.  Even in the 1800s artists, even highly talented and respected artists, weren't above following public opinion to wherever the money was.  Alright, still having trouble picturing his work?  Let me help you out.

The Great Wave Off Kanagawa, first in the series Thirty-six Views Of Mount Fuji
(click to embiggen, clicky-poppy)

We're all on the same page now, yes?  He made perhaps the best known image in Japanese art history, and didn't just rest on his laurels.  He was incredibly prolific.  One of his other pieces is just as well known, although in a very different circle.  It's entitled The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife, and... well... even though it is a masterpiece, created by an incredibly talented artist, it is... how to say this... unusual.

The subject matter is associated with the myth of Princess Tamatori, who... you know what?  I don't really buy it.  The story of Princess Tamatori is so different from the picture that if it was a movie, it was be listed as "Inspired by".  In the story, Tamatori escapes unharmed by the dragon or its grotesque guardian creatures, but dies from a self-inflicted wound.  The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife has a woman who, shall we say, does not escape unmolested.  And I mean that in the most literal sense possible.  Perhaps it's time to finally reveal what Hokusai liked to draw when he wasn't drawing waves and distant views of mountains.

The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife
(click to embiggen, clicky-poppy)

Yes. he created the first known example of tentacle porn.  In 1814.  Some people have theorized that Japan's strangely high rate of fetishism, particularly for things like tentacle porn, have to do with the damage to the collective psyche caused by the devastating loss of WWII, particularly the destruction of entire cities by nuclear weapons.  They say that for a society to become this sexually... I hesitate to say perverse, since that's pretty judgmental... atypical, they have to be damaged goods.  Just look at Germany's association with coprophilia (whether justified or not, I have no idea) as another example of this theory in action.

But then look at the date for Hokusai's work.  1814.  That's a long time before the World Wars.  Japan has been a strange country for a long, long time.  And it's catching.  Check this out:

Untitled piece, Pablo Picasso, 1903

That's a piece done by Pablo Picasso in 1903, directly inspired by Hokusai's piece.  Perhaps needless to say, being a famous artist doesn't mean you aren't a seriously strange guy.

Hokusai: World famous artist and a big fan of octopuses.  Also an inspiration to Picasso and a whole sub-section of modern Japanese society.

And no, I'm not going to show examples of the current batch of "tentacle erotica".  You've got the internet, you can find it on your own.

Also, octopuses is the correct plural.  Octopi comes from the mistaken belief that octopus is Latin in origin, but it's Greek, so octopi is just flat-out wrong.

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Sources:
Image of The Great Wave Off Kanagawa taken from WebMuseum of Paris
Image of The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife taken from Wikipedia
Image of Picasso's untitled erotic painting taken from ModelErotic.com
AK-Antiek antiques - Dutch site (in English) with some commentary and excellent pictures of The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife
Article on Japanese erotic art from St. Olaf's College in Minnesota
On-line Picasso Project
Wikipedia article on Hokusai
Wikipedia article on The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife
Wikipedia article on tentacle erotica