The Great Wave
Quintessentially Japanese, yet influenced by Western art and printed with European blue, Hokusai’s print fascinated and inspired many Modern painters.
Hokusai’s The Wave is an iconic image and one of the most reproduced. It could be described as ‘viral’ — it’s even an emoji. Probably, the most well-known image from Japanese art. Yet, it was influenced by European art, and its prevalent blue colour, commonly called Prussian Blue, was a synthetic pigment discovered in Europe.
Hokusai literally translates as ‘Studio of the North Star’, and was the ‘moniker’ of the very famous ukiyo-e (‘floating world’) artist during the Edo period of Japan (1603 -1868). It was an era of greater access to affordable enjoyments for the common people, including various forms of theatre, books and decorative prints. Hokusai was just one of around 30 pseudonyms used by the master print-maker who, as a boy, had been named Tokitarō.
It was published sometime between 1829 and 1833 when Hokusai was in his seventies and already very famous in Japan. He was living in the capital Edo, now Tokyo, with his daughter Eijo who was also a talented painter.
Hokusai had the opportunity to study some examples of Western art that arrived in Japan and used the Western-style…
