Liu Bang Beheads The Snake

This print was the 10th print in the Hokusai Reborn serier, the collaboration project between Mokuhankan and the British Museum. The Museum has in their possession a group of drawings by Hokusai that were apparently intended for use in the production of a series of books. For reasons unknown to us now that project was cancelled, but the drawings survived, 12 images were selected for a subscription series.  Here is the link to the full collection of images held by the British Museum - [Link]

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The images in the full set are broken up into a number of themes. aspects of Japanese historical culture,  Buddhist deities, historical landscapes,  scenes of the natural world and warriors from ancient China. This image depicts Liu Bang moments before he slays the white snake. this comes from a sorry of the  foundation of the Han Dynasty after the collapse of the Qin Dynasty, lead by the rebel leader Liu Bang.

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As with all images in the Hokusai Reborn series, the key block was carved on boxwood in order to produce the level of detail you see in the print. Many of the smaller hairs  are carved 5 to a millimeter, and cherry wood would not have been sufficiently strong to hold these lines. 

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IIt was a delicate balancing act between faithfully recreating the lines exactly as drawn by Hokusai—every bump, notch, and wiggle—and correcting minor "errors," such as a crooked sword or slight mistakes in the kanji. The original sketch is also not colorized, so with great reverence and reference to Hokusai’s other works, I created a set of color blocks that I believe represent how this image might have been completed using multiple blocks. However, this is ultimately my interpretation of how it could have been done.

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This was a dream project and not an opportunity afforded to many carvers, the chance to create a blockset from Hokusais' own brush. I'm still young but this project is certainly a hi-light in my career as a carver.​​