Katsushika Hokusai: Under the Wave off Kanagawa, 1830-32

image courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849) known simply as Hokusai, was a Japanese artist, ukiyo-e painter and printmaker of the Edo period. Born in Edo (now Tokyo), Hokusai is best known as author of the woodblock print series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku Sanjūroku-kei, c.831) which includes the internationally iconic print, Under the Wave off Kanagawa (also known as The Great Wave).

Hokusai created the Thirty-Six Views both as a response to a domestic travel boom and as part of a personal obsession with Mount Fuji. It was this series, specifically Under the Wave print and Fine Wind, Clear Morning, that secured Hokusai's fame both in Japan and overseas.

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.

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HC-1061: card size 7" x 5" (178mm x 127mm)