The Great Wave off Kanagawa instance of woodblock print
The Great Wave off Kanagawa (Japanese: 神奈川沖浪裏, Hepburn: Kanagawa-oki Nami Ura, lit. 'Under the Wave off Kanagawa') is a woodblock print by Japanese ukiyo-e artist Hokusai, created in late 1831 during the Edo period of Japanese history. The print depicts three boats moving through a storm-tossed sea, with a large wave forming a spiral in the centre and Mount Fuji visible in the background.
The print is Hokusai's best-known work and the first in his series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, in which the use of Prussian blue revolutionized Japanese prints. The composition of The Great Wave is a synthesis of traditional Japanese prints and use of  graphical perspective developed in Europe, and earned him immediate success in Japan and later in Europe, where Hokusai's art inspired works by the Impressionists. Several museums throughout the world hold copies of The Great Wave, many of which came from 19th-century private collections of Japanese prints.
The Great Wave off Kanagawa has been described as "possibly the most reproduced image in the history of all art", as well as being a contender for the "most famous artwork in Japanese history". It has influenced several notable artists and musicians, including Vincent van Gogh, Claude Debussy, Claude Monet, and Hiroshige.Context
Ukiyo-e art
Ukiyo-e is a Japanese printmaking technique which flourished in the 17th through 19th centuries. Its artists produced woodblock prints and paintings of subjects including female beauties; kabuki actors and sumo wrestlers; scenes from history and folk tales; travel scenes and landscapes; Japanese flora and fauna; and erotica. The term ukiyo-e (浮世絵) translates as "picture[s] of the floating world".
After Edo (now Tokyo) became the seat of the ruling Tokugawa shogunate in 1603, the chōnin class of merchants, craftsmen, and workers benefited most from the city's rapid economic growth, and began to indulge in and patronise the entertainment of kabuki theatre, geisha, and courtesans of the pleasure districts; the term ukiyo ("floating world") came to describe this hedonistic lifestyle. Printed or painted ukiyo-e works were popular with the chōnin class, who had become wealthy enough to afford to decorate their homes with them.The earliest ukiyo-e works, Hishikawa Moronobu's paintings and monochromatic prints of women, emerged in the 1670s. Colour prints were introduced gradually, and at first were only used for special commissions. By the 1740s, artists such as Okumura Masanobu used multiple woodblocks to print areas of colour. In the 1760s, the success of Suzuki Harunobu's "brocade prints" led to full-colour production becoming standard, with ten or more blocks used to create each print. Some ukiyo-e artists specialized in creating paintings, but most works were prints. Artists rarely carved their own woodblocks; production was divided between the artist, who designed the prints; the carver, who cut the woodblocks; the printer, who inked and pressed the woodblocks onto hand-made paper; and the publisher who financed, promoted, and distributed the works. As printing was done by hand, printers were able to achieve effects impractical with machines, such as the blending or gradation of colours on the printing block.Description
The Great Wave off Kanagawa is a landscape-format yoko-e print that was produced in an ōban size of 25 cm × 37 cm (9.8 in × 14.6 in). The landscape is composed of three elements: a stormy sea, three boats, and a mountain. The artist's signature is visible in the upper left-hand corner.Signature
The Great Wave of Kanagawa has two inscriptions. The title of the series is written in the upper-left corner within a rectangular frame, which reads: "冨嶽三十六景/神奈川沖/浪裏" Fugaku Sanjūrokkei / Kanagawa oki / nami ura, meaning "Thirty-six views of Mount Fuji / On the high seas in Kanagawa / Under the wave". The inscription to the left of the box bears the artist's signature: 北斎改爲一筆 Hokusai aratame Iitsu hitsu which reads as "(painting) from the brush of Hokusai, who changed his name to Iitsu". Due to his humble origins, Hokusai had no surname; his first nickname Katsushika was derived from the region he came from. Throughout his career, Hokusai used over 30 names and never started a new cycle of work without changing his name, sometimes leaving his name to his students.The "blue revolution"
During the 1830s, Hokusai's prints underwent a "blue revolution", in which he made extensive use of the dark-blue pigment Prussian blue. He used this shade of blue for The Great Wave off Kanagawa rather than indigo, the delicate, quickly fading shade of blue that was commonly used in ukiyo-e works at the time. Prussian blue, which is known in Japanese as berorin ai, was imported from Holland beginning in 1820, and was extensively used by Hiroshige and Hokusai after its arrival in Japan in large quantities in 1829.The first 10 prints in the series, including The Great Wave off Kanagawa, are among the first Japanese prints to feature Prussian blue, which was most likely suggested to the publisher in 1830. This innovation was an immediate success. In early January 1831, Hokusai's publisher Nishimuraya Yohachi (Eijudō) widely advertised the innovation, and the following year published the next 10 prints in the Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji series, and unique for their predominantly-blue aizuri-e style, with Kōshū Kajikazawa ("Kajikazawa in Kai Province") being a notable example. The outlines on these 10 supplementary prints, known collectively as ura Fuji ("Fuji seen from behind"), are sumi black with India ink rather than Prussian blue.
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