Yesterday I attended a seminar about the trial digitization of Hokusai Manga.
Hokusai Manga is a series of books of prints by Katsushika Hokusai. It was published from 1814 to even after his death. Though it is called manga (cartoon), it is rather a collection of sketches depicting people's daily life, commodities, animals etc. The archiving was done by a Japanese major printing firm and a system solution provider who also hosted the seminar.
Each original sketch is very small (and old) and when the digitized images were displayed on a large screen... the details were very clearly shown. The technology of shedding new light on old artworks, which otherwise might never draw much attention of contemporary humans, will no doubt create a new market. I was more impressed with Hokusai's detailed drawing that survived 200 years and digitization!
*The digital archive will be displayed for free on May 18, 19 and 20, 2012 at Mitsui Memorial Museum, Tokyo.
