Painting of the Month (30) June 2012: Hokusai

Hokusai's 'The Great Wave off Kanagawa'

This iconic image was produced in about 1830 by the Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai. It is a wood-block print and the first in a series depicting views of Mount Fuji. These kind of prints were usually made using cherry wood by a printer engraving from an original painting and the artist would not be involved in the process of  it's production. Many prints were made and this is an early, very high quality version.

Ying &Yang

The tension in the picture is derived from the impending crash that the huge wave is about to make. The power of the wave makes a ying-yang contrast with the space beneath it as the scared Mount Fuji sits serenely in the background. There are three fishing boats in the scene that are so cleverly interwoven that it is easy to miss them at first look. The boats would have been bringing fish from the islands around Edo (modern day Tokyo) to the mainland. It was unusual at that time to depict everyday work-related events in a painting.
I think the clean lines and pure colours make this a work of true beauty. Incidentally the artist has made good use of the, then recent, availability of a new blue pigment known as 'Berlin Blue'.