Katsushika Hokusai
Hokusai (born October 1760, Edo [now Tokyo], Japan—died May 10, 1848) was a Japanese master artist and printmaker of the ukiyo-e ("pictures of the floating world") school. His early works represent the full spectrum of ukiyo-e art, including single-sheet prints of landscapes and actors, hand paintings, and surimon ("printed things"), such as greetings and announcements. Later he concentrated on the classical themes of the samurai and Chinese subjects. His famous print series "Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji," published between 1825 and 1833, marked the summit in the history of the Japanese landscape print.
Early years
Hokusai was born in the Katsushika quarter of Edo and became interested in art from an early age, possibly influenced by a prestigious artisan family. He was adopted at around the age of four by the family of Nakajima Ise, a mirror-maker to the shogun, and given the name Nakajima Tetsuzo. He was never accepted as the legitimate heir, however, possibly supporting the theory that he was in fact the son of a concubine.
Hokusai is said to have served in his youth as a clerk in a lending bookshop, and from 15 to 18 years of age he was apprenticed to a wood-block engraver. This early training in the book and printing trades obviously contributed to Hokusai's artistic development as a printmaker.
The earliest contemporary record of Hokusai dates from the year 1778, when, at the age of 18, he became a pupil of the leading ukiyo-e master, Katsukawa Shunshō. The young Hokusai's first published works appeared the following year—actor prints of the kabuki theatre, the genre that Shunshō and the Katsukawa school practically dominated.
To judge from the ages of his several children, Hokusai must have married in his mid-20s. Possibly under the influence of family life, from this period his designs tended to turn from prints of actors and women to historical and landscape subjects, especially uki-e (semi-historical landscapes using Western-influenced perspective techniques), as well as prints of children. The artist's book illustrations and texts turned as well from the earlier themes to historical and didactic subjects. At the same time, Hokusai's work in the surimon genre during the subsequent decade marks one of the early peaks in his career. Surimon were prints issued privately for special occasions—New Year's and other greetings, musical programs and announcements, private verse selections—in limited editions and featuring immaculate printing of the highest quality.
Middle years
In his middle years, Hokusai experienced significant artistic evolution and personal hardship. He began to distance himself from the Katsukawa school, partly due to the death of his master Shunshō in 1792 and partly due to his own burgeoning interest in other Japanese and Chinese artistic traditions. He started using the name "Hokusai" around 1797, and his work from this period shows a broader range of influences.
A series of personal tragedies, including the death of his wife and his own financial struggles, seemed to fuel rather than hinder his artistic output. He moved residences frequently—some accounts say over ninety times in his life—often to avoid creditors. Despite this instability, the period from 1800 to 1820 was one of prodigious production. He created several major illustrated books, including the first volumes of his instructional manga (random drawings), which were sketchbooks of countless subjects—animals, people, mythological figures—intended as model books for other artists. These manga volumes became widely popular and demonstrated his incredible draftsmanship and observational skill.
Later years and legacy
Hokusai's most celebrated work was created in his seventies. It was during this period that he produced the iconic "Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji," which includes the world-renowned print "The Great Wave off Kanagawa." This series was revolutionary for its bold composition, innovative use of the newly affordable Prussian blue pigment, and its focus on the daily lives of common people within dramatic landscapes. The series was so popular that ten additional prints were added to the original thirty-six.
In his later writings, Hokusai expressed a profound belief in his own artistic growth with age. He famously wrote that by the age of 110, every dot and line he drew would be alive. Though he never reached that age, he continued working relentlessly until his death at 88. Hokusai's influence extended far beyond Japan; after the country opened up in the Meiji period, his prints reached Europe and profoundly impacted the Impressionist and Art Nouveau movements. Artists such as Claude Monet and Vincent van Gogh collected his prints and were inspired by his compositions and use of colour.
The Fashion Industry
A The fashion industry is a multibillion-dollar global enterprise devoted to the business of making and selling clothes. It encompasses all types of garments, from designer fashions to ordinary everyday clothing. Because data on the industry are typically reported for national economies, and expressed in terms of its many separate sectors, total figures for world production of textiles and clothing are difficult to obtain. However, by any measure, the industry accounts for a significant share of world economic output.
B The fashion industry is a product of the modern age. Prior to the mid-19th century, virtually all clothing was handmade for individuals, either as home production or on order from dressmakers and tailors. By the beginning of the 20th century, with the development of new technologies such as the sewing machine, the development of the factory system of production, and the growth of department stores and other retail outlets, clothing had increasingly come to be mass-produced in standard sizes, and sold at fixed prices. Although the fashion industry developed first in Europe, today it is highly globalised, with garments often designed in one country, manufactured in another, and sold in a third. For example, an American fashion company might source fabric in China and have the clothes manufactured in Vietnam, finished in Italy, and shipped to a warehouse in the United States for distribution to retail outlets internationally.
C One of the first accomplishments of the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century was the partial automation of the spinning and weaving of wool, cotton, silk and other natural fibres. Today, these processes are highly automated and carried out by computer-controlled, high-speed machinery, and fabrics made from both natural fibres and synthetic fibres (such as nylon, acrylic, and polyester) are produced. A growing interest in sustainable fashion (or 'eco-fashion') has led to greater use of environmentally friendly fibres, such as hemp. In addition, high-tech synthetic fabrics offer such properties as moisture absorption, stain resistance, retention or dissipation of body heat, and protection against fire, weapons, cold, ultraviolet radiation, and other hazards. Fabrics are also produced with a wide range of visual effects through dyeing, weaving, printing, and other processes. Together with fashion forecasters, fabric manufacturers work well in advance of the clothing production cycle, to create fabrics with colours, textures, and other qualities that anticipate consumer demand.
D Historically, very few fashion designers have become famous brands such as Coco Chanel or Calvin Klein, who have been responsible for prestigious high-fashion collections. These designers are influential in the fashion world, but, contrary to popular belief, they do not dictate new fashions; rather, they endeavour to design clothes that will meet consumer demand. The vast majority of designers work in anonymity for manufacturers, as part of design teams, adapting designs into marketable garments for average consumers. They draw inspiration from a wide range of sources, including film and television costumes, street clothing, and active sportswear. The fashion industry's traditional design methods, such as paper sketches and the draping of fabric on mannequins, have been supplemented or replaced by computer-assisted design techniques. These allow designers to rapidly make changes to a proposed design, and instantaneously share the proposed changes with colleagues — whether they are in the next room or on another continent.
E An important stage in garment production is the translation of the clothing design into templates, in a range of sizes, for cutting the cloth. Because the proportions of the human body change with increases or decreases in weight, templates cannot simply be scaled up or down. Template making was traditionally a highly skilled profession. Today, despite innovations in computer programming, designs in larger sizes are difficult to adjust for every body shape. Whatever the size, the template — whether drawn on paper or programmed as a set of computer instructions — determines how fabric is cut into the pieces that will be joined to make a garment. For all but the most expensive clothing, fabric cutting is accomplished by computer-guided knives or high-intensity lasers that can cut many layers of fabric at once.
F The next stage of production is the assembly process. Some companies use their own production facilities for some or all of the manufacturing process, but the majority rely on separately owned manufacturing firms or contractors to produce garments to their specifications. In the field of women's clothing, manufacturers typically produce several product lines a year, which they deliver to retailers on predetermined dates. Technological innovation, including the development of computer-guided machinery, has resulted in the automation of some stages of assembly. Nevertheless, the fundamental process of sewing remains labour-intensive. In the late 20th century, China emerged as the world's largest producer of clothing because of its low labour costs and highly disciplined workforce. Assembled items then go through various processes collectively known as 'finishing'. These include the addition of decorative elements, fasteners, brand-name labels, and other labels (often legally required) specifying fibre content, laundry instructions, and country of manufacture. Finished items are then pressed and packed for shipment.
G For much of the period following World War II, trade in textiles and garments was strictly regulated by purchasing countries, which imposed quotas and tariffs. Since the 1980s, these protectionist measures, which were intended (ultimately without success) to prevent textile and clothing production from moving from high-wage to low-wage countries, have gradually been abandoned. They have been replaced by a free-trade approach, under the regulatory control of global organisations. The advent of metal shipping containers and relatively inexpensive air freight have also made it possible for production to be closely tied to market conditions, even across globe-spanning distances.
The Art of Deception
Forty years ago, the research psychologist Dr Paul Ekman was addressing a group of young psychiatrists in training when he was asked a question, the answer to which has kept him busy ever since. Suppose, the group wanted to know, a particular patient swears they are telling the truth. They look and sound sincere. So here is the question: is there any way you can be sure they are telling the truth? Ekman did not know the answer then, but wanted to find out.
As part of his research, he had already filmed a series of 12-minute interviews with psychiatric patients. In a subsequent conversation, one of the patients told him that she had lied to him. So Ekman sat and looked at the film but saw nothing noteworthy. Then he slowed it down and looked again. Then he slowed it even further. And suddenly, there, across just two frames of the film, he saw it: an intense expression of extreme anguish. It lasted less than a 15th of a second, but once he had spotted the first expression, he soon found three more examples in that same interview. He termed his discovery micro-expressions: very rapid, intense demonstrations of emotion that the subject intended to be concealed.
Over the course of the next four decades, Ekman successfully demonstrated a proposition first suggested by Charles Darwin: that the ways in which we express rage, disgust, contempt, fear, surprise, happiness, and sadness are universal. The facial muscles triggered by those seven basic emotions are, he has shown, essentially standard, regardless of language and culture, from the US to Japan, and Brazil to Papua New Guinea. What is more, expressions of emotion are impossible to suppress and, particularly when we are lying, micro-expressions of powerfully felt emotions will inevitably flit across our faces before we get the chance to stop them.
Fortunately for liars, most people will fail to spot these fleeting signals of inner torment. Of the 15,000 Ekman has tested, only 50 people, whom he calls naturals, have been able to do it. But given a little more training, Ekman says, almost anyone can develop the skill. He should know: since these tests were completed in the mid-1980s and the first publication of his research, he has been called in by the FBI and CIA (among countless more law-enforcement and other agencies around the world), not just to solve cases, but to teach them how to use his technique for themselves. He has held workshops for defence and prosecution lawyers, health professionals, even jealous spouses, all of them wanting to know exactly when someone is not being 100 per cent candid.
Most recently, Ekman's research has resulted in a new television series about the exploits of the fictional Dr Cal Lightman, a scientist who studies involuntary body language to discover not only if you are lying, but why you might have been motivated to do so. According to the publicity blurb, Lightman is a human lie detector, even more accurate than a polygraph test. Ekman concedes he was sceptical when the producer first approached him with the idea of turning his life's work into a TV series, and initially would have stopped the project if he could. In particular, he was fearful that the show would exaggerate the effectiveness of his techniques and create the quite inaccurate impression among audiences that criminals could no longer hope to get away with lying. In the worst-case scenario, he was concerned about unfair convictions: that one day someone not properly trained in his techniques might be sitting on a jury and wrongly find someone guilty of a crime simply on the basis of a television programme.
In the end though, he was won over because the series is unusual in several respects. It is the first time, as far as Ekman is aware, that a commercial TV drama has been based on the work of just one scientist. That scientist is also deeply involved in the project, talking through plot ideas and checking five successive drafts of each script to ensure details are correct. He was also impressed with the producer's manifestly serious and well-intentioned reasons for making the programme. Now that the first series has been completed, he believes probably 80-90 per cent of the show is based on fact, and that's good enough for what is, after all, a drama, not a documentary.
Ekman, incidentally, professes to have been a terrible liar ever since he was a small boy and observes that the ability to detect a lie and the ability to lie successfully are completely unrelated. He has been asked by people running for high office if he could teach them to become more credible with the public, but has always refused to use his skills in that way on ethical grounds. He also insists that there are various kinds of lies. A true lie can be identified by having two essential characteristics: there must be a deliberate intent to mislead and there must be no notification that this is what is occurring. This means that an actor or a poker player isn't a true liar. They're supposed to be deceiving you; it's part of the game, and the same is true of flattery. He prefers to focus on the kinds of lies where the liar would be in grave trouble if they were found out, and where the target would feel properly aggrieved if they knew.
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