A dragon, adjusted (and the man who painted it)

The reason I say "adjusted" is because I was pleased to find that Claude (free version) was able to improve the original, which had the tricky issue of uneven lighting affecting one side more than the other:

Maybe I'm easily impressed, but that's a pleasing outcome.  

Anyway, by way of further explanation, the painting is by famous Japanese artist Hokusai, and as may guess from the border of the dragon painting, yes he's the guy who made this:

On the recent trip to Japan, I visited not one, but two museums devoted to him.  The first is in a town on the outskirts of Nagano, called Obuse.  (It feels a bit more like a distant suburb, really, and takes about 40 min to get to on a local train.  It's a pleasant area with nice shops and local gardens to visit, apart from the museum.)

The reason it has a museum is because Hokusai used to visit there in his late career, hence the area has some of his artwork, including the dragon painting which is on a panel for a festival float.  

It shows videos about his career, and has displays including his intricately illustrated pages from books, like this:

I must admit, I still don't quite understand how these were made, as the size of the pages and the intricacy of the lines makes them too detailed for woodblock prints, but I think that's what they were.

It's kind of remarkable how he published style books for other people to learn how to draw.  It feels like he created the whole modern Japanese love of manga and drawing.   (Yes, now that I check, he is considered the "godfather" of manga.)  

The museum has a great gift shop, too.  Better than the one in the next museum, in Tokyo.

That one is in the Sumida City area in Tokyo, an area which is, incidentally, good to stay in if you want a more "local" experience.  It's not that far from Tokyo Station, too.  

Sumida has its own Hokusai museum because he used to live around that area, and the local council has signs in different locations showing some of his illustrations.

The museum is fine, and goes a bit more into the wood block technology of the day, but it has strict no photos rules, and a quite small gift shop area.  

So, going to both museums really worked well.  I should read a bit more about his life, as he was ridiculously prolific and so influential...