It was the West that first discovered the art of the Japanese woodblock print. Though popular in Japan, the prints were denied any kind of artistic standing until it became understood that abroad their reputation was much higher than at home.
In the same way, one of the most representative of these artists, Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849), was first given aesthetic recognition in Europe and America. In 1880 the short but important "Notes on Hokusai" by Edward Morse had appeared, and between 1896 and 1914 three biographies had appeared in French -- those of Edmond de Goncourt, Henri Facillon and Marcel Revon.
In Japan there was no such interest. There had been an 1817 pamphlet about how Hokusai had managed to paint the famous big picture of Dharma, but no truly comprehensive monograph appeared after Iijima Kyoshin's 1893 compilation, itself consisting of mainly biographical anecdotes. What did appear were mainly compendiums of chronological data. Narazaki Muneshige's 1944 monograph was the first serious work on the artist.