| Description |
The Great Wave
Under the Wave off Kanagawa
Kanagawa oki nami ura
Hokusai
1826-1833
Description of Original: woodcut, color
Location: Various
Also known as The Great Wave, this print is from the series Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji.
The most famous single image from the series, it is widely known in English as The Great Wave off Kanagawa, although a more literal translation might be, "Off Kanagawa, the back (or underside) of a wave." It depicts three boats being threatened by a large wave while Mount Fuji rises in the background. While generally assumed to be a tsunami, the wave was probably intended to simply be a large ocean wave.
Copies of the print are in many Western collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, the British Museum in London, and in Claude Monet's house in Giverny, France.
Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji is an ukiyo-e series of large, color woodblock prints by the Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai The series depicts Mount Fuji in differing seasons and weather conditions from a variety of different places and distances. It actually consists of 46 prints created between 1826 and 1833. The first 36 were included in the original publication and, due to their popularity, ten more were added after the original publication.
Mount Fuji is a popular subject for Japanese art due to its cultural and religious significance. This belief can be traced to The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, where a goddess deposits the elixir of life on the peak. From an early time, Mt. Fuji was seen as the source of the secret of immortality, a tradition that was at the heart of Hokusai's own obsession with the mountain.
Each of the images was made through a process whereby an image drawn on paper was used to guide the cutting of a wood block. This block was then covered with ink and applied to paper to create the image The complexity of Hokusai's images includes the wide range of colors he used, which required the use of a series of blocks for each of the colors used in the images.
Katsushika Hokusai 1760 – 1849
A Japanese artist, ukiyo-e painter and printmaker of the Edo period. In his time, he was Japan's leading expert on Chinese painting. Born in Edo (now Tokyo), Hokusai is best-known as author of the woodblock print series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, which includes the internationally recognized print, The Great Wave off Kanagawa, created during the 1820s.
Hokusai created the "Thirty-Six Views" both as a response to a domestic travel boom and as part of a personal obsession with Mount Fuji. It was this series, specifically The Great Wave print and Fuji in Clear Weather, that secured Hokusai’s fame both within Japan and overseas. As historian Richard Lane concludes, "Indeed, if there is one work that made Hokusai's name, both in Japan and abroad, it must be this monumental print-series...". While Hokusai's work prior to this series is certainly important, it was not until this series that he gained broad recognition and left a lasting impact on the art world. It was also The Great Wave print that initially received, and continues to receive, acclaim and popularity in the Western world. |
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