The Great Wave off Kanagawa (0)

The Great Wave off Kanagawa
The Great Wave off Kanagawa , also known as The Great Wave or simply The Wave, is a woodblock print  by theJapanese artist  Hokusai . An example of ukiyo-e art, it was published sometime between 1830 and 1833[1] ( during the Edo Period ) as the first in Hokusai's series  Thirty -six Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku sanjūrokkei (富嶽三十六景?)), and is his most famous work . This particular woodblock is one of the most recognized works of Japanese art in the world. It depicts an enormous wavethreatening boats near the Japanese prefecture of Kanagawa. While sometimes assumed to be a  tsunami , the wave is, as the picture 's title notes , more likely to be a large okinami – literally "wave of the open sea." As in all the prints in the series, it depicts the area around  Mount Fuji under particular conditions , and the mountain itself appears in the background.
COPIES
Copies of the print are in many Western collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, the  British Museum in London, The Art Institute of Chicago, and in  Claude Monet's house in Giverny,  France .
Ukiyo-e art
Ukiyo-e (浮世絵?, lit. Pictures of the Floating World) is a Japanese print technique, which was very popular during the Edo period. The technique of printing from blocks of wood was introduced to Japan in the 8th century from China and was used principally for the illustration of Buddhist texts.[2] From the 17th century the technique began to be used for the illustration of poems and romances.[2] It was this period that really saw the rise of the style known as ukiyo-e.
Description
This impression is of the yoko-e type, in landscape , and was produced to the ōban  size , 25 centimetres high by 37 wide .
The landscape consists of three elements: the sea whipped up by a storm , three boats and a mountain. The composition is complemented by the signature which stands out in the upper left - hand corner.
The mountain
The mountain that is seen at the bottom is Mount Fuji, with a snowcapped peak . Fuji is the central figure in the work (representation of famous places) Thirty six views of Mount Fuji, which give a portrait of the mountain seen from various angles. In Japan Mt. Fuji is considered sacred and is a symbol of national identity ,[19] in addition to being considered a symbol of beauty .[20]
The dark color around Fuji seems to indicate that the image takes place early in the morning , with the sun rising from the point of the observer, and illuminating the snowy peak. Between the mountain and the viewer there are cumulonimbus clouds, and although they indicate a storm, there is rain on neither Fuji nor the main scene .[21]
Boats
In the scene there are three oshiokuri-bune, fast boats that are used to transport live fish[22] from the Izu and Bōsō peninsulas to the markets of the bay of Edo. As the name of the piece indicates the boats are in Kanagawa prefecture, with Tokyo to the north , Mt Fuji to the northeast, the bay of Sagami to the south . and the bay of Tokyo to the east . The boats oriented to the southeast, are returning to the capital.
There are eight rowers per boat , clinging to their oars. There are two more passengers in the front of each boat, bringing the total number of human figures in the image to thirty. Using the boats as reference, one can approximate the size of the wave: theoshiokuri-bune were generally between 12 to 15 meters long, and noting that Hokusai reduced the vertical scale by 30%, the wave must be between 10 to 12 meters tall .[21]
The sea and the waves
The sea is the dominant element of the composition, that is taken up by an extending wave about to break, which dominates the entire scene. In the moment captured in this image the wave forms a circle whose center is in the center of the design, allowing the viewer to see Mt Fuji in the background.
Edmond de Goncourt described the wave in this way:
The drawing of the wave is a deification of the sea made by a painter who lived with the religious terror of the overwhelming ocean completely surrounding his country ; He is impressed by the sudden fury of the ocean's leap toward the sky, by the deep blue of the inner side of the curve, by the splash of its claw -like crest as it sprays forth droplets.[23]
Andreas Ramos, a writer , notes:
[...]a seascape with Fuji. The waves form a frame through which we see the mountain. The gigantic wave is a yin yang of empty space beneath the mountain. The inevitable breaking that we await creates a tension in the picture. In the background, a small wave forming a miniature Fuji is reflected by the distant mountain, itself shrunk in perspective. The little wave is larger than the mountain. The small fishermen cling to thin fishing boats, slide on a sea-mount looking to dodge the wave. The violent  Yang of nature is overcome by the yin of the confidence of these experienced fishermen. Strangely, despite a storm, the sun shines high.[23]
In the two first designs the waves appear to be dense and uniform , they almost seem to be minerals. Their rigidity and verticality evoke the shape of a snow-capped mountain, while in the Great Wave the wave stands out because it is more active , dynamic , and aggressive , which make it threatening.
The earlier images are very marked by the perspective traditionally used in Japanese painting, where the viewer sees the scene from a bird 's-eye view. The Great Wave, on the other hand, is depicted in a more western perspective, giving the feeling that the wave will break on top of the viewer.
In the earlier prints the horizon is in the middle , whereas in the Great Wave the horizon is so low that it forces the viewer's eye to the very center of the action .
In the first two, there is a sail boat on the crest of the wave, as if it had managed to escape. Hokusai eliminated this element for the Great Wave, because it interfered with the dynamic of the curve or to make the image more dramatic.
Non original copies and derivative works
Like other well known Japanese prints, the Great Wave has been frequently copied using the same techniques, as well as reproduced by photo -mechanical means . These copies are often confused with the authentic original print
The print is one of the most reproduced artworks in the world, and was one of the subjects of the BBC  documentary series, "The Private Life of a Masterpiece ", which detailed the fascination surrounding the work in the East and West , its influence , and the artist's insights into a number of different areas, as revealed through the piece.
The print is the subject of episode 93 of the radio series A History of the World in 100 Objects, broadcast in September 2010.
The logo used by the Quiksilver clothing company was inspired by the Great Wave