Katsushika Hokusai's "Chrysanthemums and Horsefly," a woodblock print made around 1833-34, was one of the many works by the Japanese master printer that influenced French Impressionist painter Claude Monet. (Dan Dennehy/Minneapolis Institute of Art)

French Impressionist painter Claude Monet (1840-1926) and Edo-era Japanese printmaker Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849) never met and were alive at the same time for only nine years. But sometimes your heroes are the ones you never get to meet.

Hokusai is known for his magnificent print “The Great Wave off Kanagawa,” 1831, but it’s his “Large Flower” series, created around the same time (1833-34) that influenced Monet.

The two masters come together in a quiet, sparsely curated exhibition at the Minneapolis Institute of Art titled “Hokusai|Monet.” The show includes 10 prints from Hokusai’s “Large Flower” series and Monet’s “Chrysanthemums,” 1897.

The minimal approach was key for Mai Yamaguchi, Mia’s assistant curator of Japanese and Korean Art, and Galina Olmsted, Mia’s associate curator of European Art.

A generous private collector loaned Claude Monet's painting "Bed of Chrysanthemums," 1897, to the Minneapolis Institute of Art, sparking the idea for this exhibition. (Minneapolis Institute of Art/Minneapolis Institute of Art)

“That was one thing that we really wanted: A place where people can stop and actually look,” Yamaguchi said. “We have a lot of art in our museum, which is good, but we want people to experience and appreciate the fact of looking.”

Hokusai’s painting depicts orange poppies that seem to sway in the wind, the petals ruffled and pointy against a blue background. A grasshopper hides out on a jagged leaf, flanked by a swath of pale pink irises. An oversized horsefly zooms through the air in front of blossoming pink, red and yellow chrysanthemums.

Monet owned four of the Hokusai prints in the show, including the iris, chrysanthemums, the peonies and the morning glories. He purchased his first Hokusai print in Amsterdam in 1871.

The minimally curated exhibition "Hokusai|Monet" at the Minneapolis Institute of Art offers visitors a chance to focus their attention. (Alicia Eler/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

Movement

Although these prints look “still” to a contemporary viewer, Yamaguchi encourages people to look closer. Compared with other prints during the Edo period in Japan, these prints incorporated more movement.

Hokusai was influenced by Western art that came to Japan through traders, such as Dutch and Chinese merchants, but that information was scarce. During the Edo period, travel within Japan was limited, and travel abroad was prohibited.

Mia owns other Monet prints — so why didn’t they make it into the show? In Gallery 351, there’s Monet’s “Still Life With Pheasants and Plovers,” 1879, that features four dead birds arranged on a tablecloth.

“That’s so much more of a composed still life,” Olmsted said. “If you were to describe ‘Chrysanthemums’ to someone, it would sound very much like a still life, but then you realize, ‘Wait, there’s no table, there’s no vase!’ It really is just this decorative kind of panel. It’s almost like wallpaper in that way.”

The illusion of movement is also apparent in Monet’s painting “Grainstack, Sun in the Mist,” 1891, in Gallery 355. It looks like the haystack is gently swaying or just toasting under the sun. But it is perhaps in Monet’s painting “The Japanese Bridge,” 1923-1925, painted just a year before the artist died, that movement completely took over. The colors in this painting are so squiggly and active that it’s hard to even see the Japanese bridge at all.

In pairing the two artists, Yamaguchi stressed that she didn’t want the show to reinforce the idea of centering the West or the West constantly taking from the East.

“We wanted something different compared to what has been done, like: ‘Monet and Japan,’ as a broad theme,” Yamaguchi said. “Or like, ‘Hokusai and entire Europe.’ We thought that we’d give two masters — a master of printing and paint in Japan and a master of painting in Europe — an equal platform.”

She also noted that some Japanese collectors were able to go to Monet’s home in Giverny, France, and buy directly from him.

“These collectors are very early, and I think that’s something that’s easily forgotten in American museums where it’s always one-sided, like the West constantly taking,” she said. “We wanted to make a point that there were Japanese collectors, though obviously industrialists and people with money.”