section_path: Later life
section_name: Later life
paragraph_text: Later life
  
  The next period, beginning in 1834, saw Hokusai working under the name "Gakyō Rōjin Manji" (画狂老人卍; "The Old Man Obsessed with Painting Swastika"). It was at this time that he produced One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji, another significant series, generally considered "the masterpiece among his landscape picture books".
  
  In the colophon to this work, Hokusai writes:
  
  From the age of six, I had a passion for copying the form of things and since the age of fifty I have published many drawings, yet of all I drew by my seventieth year there is nothing worth taking into account. At seventy-three years I partly understood the structure of animals, birds, insects and fishes, and the life of grasses and plants. And so, at eighty-six I shall progress further; at ninety I shall even further penetrate their secret meaning, and by one hundred I shall perhaps truly have reached the level of the marvellous and divine. When I am one hundred and ten, each dot, each line will possess a life of its own.
  
  A True Mirror of Chinese and Japanese Poetry (Shika shashin kyo), produced in about 1833 to 1834, was printed in extra-long vertical formats resembling the form of Chinese hand scrolls. Prints in this series include poems by Chinese and Japanese poets combined with scenes in those countries, and scenes from Noh plays (a form of dance theater predating kabuki). Ten designs in this series survive.
  
  Hokusai's final print series, produced around 1835 to 1836, was called One Hundred Poems Explained by a Nurse (Hyakunin isshu tuba ga etoki). The series was never published in full, perhaps due to financial hardships faced by Hokusai's publishers during Japan's economic downturn in the mid-1830's. These prints featured scenes with the poems inscribed in a square. Each print also contains the series title listed in its own vertical rectangle.
  
  In 1839, a fire destroyed Hokusai's studio and much of his work. By this time, his career was beginning to fade as younger artists such as Andō Hiroshige became increasingly popular. At the age of 83, Hokusai traveled to Obuse in Shinano Province (now Nagano Prefecture) at the invitation of a wealthy farmer, Takai Kozan, where he stayed for several years. During his time in Obuse, he created several masterpieces, including the Masculine Wave and the Feminine Wave. Between 1842 and 1843, in what he described as "daily exorcisms" (nisshin joma), Hokusai painted Chinese lions (shishi) every morning in ink on paper as a talisman against misfortune. Hokusai continued working almost until the end, painting The Dragon of Smoke Escaping from Mt Fuji and Tiger in the Snow in early 1849.
  
  Constantly seeking to produce better work, he apparently exclaimed on his deathbed, "If only Heaven will give me just another ten years... Just another five more years, then I could become a real painter". He died on 10 May 1849 and was buried at the Seikyō-ji in Tokyo (Taito Ward). A haiku he composed shortly before his death reads: "Though as a ghost, I shall lightly tread, the summer fields".