Episode Details

Katsushika Hokusai created The Great Wave off Kanagawa — the most reproduced image in the history of art — when he was seventy years old. He changed his name over thirty times, moved house ninety-three times, and on his deathbed at eighty-eight said, "If only heaven will give me just another ten years... just another five more years, then I could become a real painter." The most prolific artist in Japanese history died believing he had barely started.

This episode traces Hokusai from his Edo childhood through the decades of obsessive production, the Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji that made him the most famous artist in Japan, and the restless perfectionism that kept him dissatisfied until his final breath.

• Hokusai's apprenticeship and the thirty name changes that marked each artistic reinvention
• The Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji and The Great Wave that conquered Western art when Japan opened
• Over 30,000 works across every medium — prints, paintings, illustrated books, and manga
• The deathbed lament and the paradox of an artist who produced more than anyone and felt he had done too little