# Boy fishing from the limb of a tree

- By: Katsushika Hokusai 葛飾北斎 (1760-1849)
- Date: 1839
- Medium: Ink and color on silk
- Classification: Paintings
- Dimensions: H x W (image): 77.1 × 29.9 cm (30 3/8 × 11 3/4 in)
- Culture: Japanese
- Credit line: Gift of Charles Lang Freer
- Museum: [Smithsonian Institution](https://asia.si.edu/object/F1902.222/)
- Rights: [CC0 (Smithsonian Open Access)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://invisiblenetwork.ai/thumbs/web/1031fd013cecb9dd5bd95209d32f9188.jpg
- Who can see it: Tweens profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

Hokusai’s work abounds with sympathetic portrayals of people of all ages engaged in mundane activities. In this painting, Hokusai captures a young fisherman in action. The boy clings to a tree with his legs and one hand while lowering his fishing rod toward the water. A basket hangs beside him. The artist’s mastery of the brush can be seen in his control of ink tonalities and his ability to render form with a few brushstrokes. A slight tremor in some of the brushstrokes appears in this and other paintings from Hokusai’s last decade.