- Title
- The Great Wave off Kanagawa
- Date Made
- circa 1830-1831
- Period
- Edo period (1603-1868)
- Medium
- Color woodblock print
- Dimensions
- Image: 10 1/4 x 15 in. (26 x 38 cm); Sheet: 10 1/4 x 15 1/4 in. (26 x 38.9 cm)
- Accession Number
- M.81.91.2
- Collecting Area
- Japanese Art
- Curatorial Notes
The Great Wave, as this print is popularly called, had a tremendous impact on Western artists and musicians after its arrival in Europe in the latter half of the nineteenth century. The domestic and international admiration for Katsushika Hokusai’s series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, of which this print is a part, can be credited to the artist’s abundant use of bright Prussian blue, a new artificial pigment introduced to Japan from the Netherlands. But it is also due to Hokusai’s geometric composition—the multiple circles formed by curling waves, the triangles created by the mountain and a smaller wave—which deftly echoes the subject matter. The waves lift and overwhelm cargo boats navigated by tenacious men struggling against the violently rolling surf. Mount Fuji, seen in the distance through the wave’s curve, represents a stable locus of permanency in this otherwise unpredictable and ever-changing world. However, Fuji’s promise of stability is an illusion: the sacred mountain is also a volcano, and Hokusai documented its 1707 eruption in another print.
