「富嶽三十六景 神奈川沖浪裏」
Under the Wave off Kanagawa (Kanagawa oki nami ura), also known as The Great Wave, from the series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku sanjūrokkei)
It’s described by New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art as follows…
The breathtaking composition of this woodblock print, said to have inspired Debussy’s La Mer (The Sea) and Rilke’s Der Berg (The Mountain), ensures its reputation as an icon of world art. Hokusai cleverly played with perspective to make Japan’s grandest mountain appear as a small triangular mound within the hollow of the cresting wave. The artist became famous for his landscapes created using a palette of indigo and imported Prussian blue.
Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Title: Under the Wave off Kanagawa (Kanagawa oki nami ura), or The Great Wave, from the series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku sanjūrokkei)
- Artist: Katsushika Hokusai (Japanese, Tokyo (Edo) 1760–1849 Tokyo (Edo))
- Period: Edo period (1615–1868)
- Date: ca. 1830–32
- Medium: Woodblock print; ink and color on paper
- Dimensions: 10 x 15 in. (25.4 x 38.1 cm)
- Classification: Prints
The world-renowned landscape print “Under the Wave off Kanagawa”—also known as “the Great Wave” was last on display as part of the exhibition The Flowering of Edo Period Painting: Japanese Masterworks from the Feinberg Collection which ran from February 1, 2014 to September 7, 2014.
It was this piece which transformed a scene from A TIGER’s TALE. As a part of a multi-page sequence a single panel need not be perfect. However, it always bothered me that there was potential in this scene that remained untapped.
