Hokusai's The Great Wave
Japan, Edo period, about AD 1829-33
Katsushika Hokusai, 'Under the Wave, off
Kanagawa' (Kanagawa oki nami-ura), a colour woodblock
print.
This is perhaps the single most famous of Hokusai's woodblock
prints - perhaps of all Japanese prints. It belongs to the series
'Thirty-six views of Mount Fuji' (Fugaku sanjūrokkei).
The graceful snow-clad mountain stands out unperturbed against
the deep blue of the horizon. Yet it is reduced to a tiny hillock
compared with the towering strength of the wave which threatens to
engulf the struggling boats. Such clever, playful manipulation of
the composition is a feature of many of Hokusai's works.
This monumental series was the first to exploit the new chemical
Berlin blue pigment, which had recently become cheaply available
from China. It provided Hokusai with a strong blue for both sky and
water and had the added advantage that it did not fade. Hokusai's
series was so commercially successful that the publisher,
Nishimuraya Eijudō, extended it with another ten prints, printed
this time with black instead of blue outlines.
Several thousand impressions were taken of the design from the
cherry-wood printing blocks, literally as many as the publisher
could sell. This is a fine early impression, still with sharp
outlines, which formerly belonged to the French collector René
Druart (1888-1961)
