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How did Hokusai use expressive lines to depict social life?

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Watercolor painting by Berthe Morisot showing Edma seated on a sofa in a floral dress with her young daughter Jeanne beside her, both facing slightly right. — Drawing *The Artist's Sister, Edma, with Her Daughter, Jeanne*, watercolor over graphite on paper by Berthe Morisot, 1872; in the collection of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Hokusai, a master of the ukiyo-e school, utilized expressive lines and dynamic brushwork to capture both the physical world and the human form. While his later career became synonymous with landscape series like the Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, his earlier work was deeply rooted in the depiction of contemporary social life, including kabuki actors and urban figures.12

In his figural work, Hokusai employed a "swiftly modulating brush" to define figures, creating a sense of volume and energy that brought his subjects to life. His approach to line work evolved throughout his career; while his early prints focused on the stylized, recognizable postures of actors, his later illustrations—such as those in the Hokusai manga—demonstrated a profound interest in the "vital nature" of all things, from animals to human figures.21

Rather than merely documenting social scenes, Hokusai’s lines served as a vehicle for his artistic philosophy, where he sought to penetrate the "deeper meaning of things." By the end of his life, he famously expressed the belief that each line he drew would eventually possess a life of its own.1