Kappa 

Katsushika Hokusai made this print of a Kappa in Japan sometime before his death in 1849. This artist is best known for his landscapes. But here we have something quite different: a rendering of a figure drawn from folklore. Kappa are water demons, part of a rich tradition of popular belief. In visual terms, the artist had to give form to something imaginary, something known through stories. Hokusai's Kappa is humanoid but also reptilian, his skin patterned like a turtle shell. He has webbed hands and feet, a beak-like mouth, and a hollow in his skull that holds water, supposedly the source of his power. What does it mean to see such an image in a museum? Well, we know that in Japan at this time, there was a growing interest in folklore. In the West, the Brothers Grimm were collecting fairy tales. In Japan, too, scholars and artists turned to popular traditions as a source of national identity. The historian can use images like this, together with popular literature and other cultural artifacts, to understand how a nation defines itself.