Katsushika Hokusai

The Great Wave off Kanagawa

<p>Loved by People Around the World<br/>"The Great Wave"</p>

Katsushika Hokusai is the most famous Japanese Ukiyo-e artist in the world, and “The Great Wave off Kanagawa” is renowned as his greatest masterpiece. Mount Fuji sits quietly in the background as the magnificently powerful great wave towers over it. The bold composition and delicate depiction shocked people around the world. The work is well known overseas as “The Great Wave,” and it is said that the composer Claude Debussy took inspiration from it to write the symphonic poem “La mer” (The Sea). “The Great Wave” is still highly acclaimed across the world today and continues to be featured as the main attraction in numerous exhibitions both in Japan and abroad. In 2017, it was sold at a Christie's New York auction for 943,500 dollars, which is the world record for an Ukiyo-e woodcut print.

Hokusai's Pursuit of the Realistic Great Wave

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Hokusai was known to portray everything under the sun, but one of his greatest passions was the depiction of waves, a challenge he continued to pursue for his entire life. He drew waves countless sometimes, striving to capture their ever-changing shapes and movement. “The Great Wave off Kanagawa” and “Oshiokuri hato tsūsen no zu,” an early work that is said to be its preliminary model, are similar in their compositions but the way the waves are portrayed is completely different. “The Great Wave off Kanagawa” was the product of Hokusai's never-ending attempt to create realistic and captivating representations of waves.

<p>Carving Delicate and Dynamic<br/>Lines in an Authentic Manner</p>

Compared to other Ukiyo-e artists, Hokusai uses more delicate lines in his work, and sophisticated skills are required to carve out the lines in a faithful way. In particular, the nuanced and intricate lines used in the crest of the wave seen in “The Great Wave off Kanagawa” are a true test of the carver's skill. The carver pays careful attention to the rhythm created by the lines and the overall balance as he uses his knife to create the powerfully dramatic composition, and even appreciates the dynamics of Hokusai's paintbrush as he carves out the different lines.

<p>Printing the Brilliant "Blue" <br/>of Hokusai's Wave</p>

“Blue” was essential to the depiction of waves that Hokusai tirelessly pursued. The synthetic pigment Prussian blue (called “bero-ai,” which means “Berlin blue”) imported from Europe in the late Edo Period was used to print Hokusai's work. For “The Great Wave off Kanagawa,” Prussian blue was used in two different concentrations to skillfully print one color over the other to create the vividly colored and three-dimensional great wave.

The Most Popular Ukiyo-e in the World

“The Great Wave” is highly appreciated the world over as the most important work of Hokusai and Ukiyo-e and is still loved by people today. It is also the most popular among the works we offer.
We hope you will see and enjoy “The Great Wave,” created by the artisans at Adachi Institute of Woodcut Prints who have inherited and preserved the Ukiyo-e printmaking techniques of the Edo Period to painstakingly produce each print.
葛飾北斎「富嶽三十六景 神奈川沖浪裏」アダチ版復刻浮世絵

The Great Wave off Kanagawa -Thirty-six Views of Mt.Fuji-

Now Hokusai's "Great Wave" is representative of ukiyo-e itself. It is one of Hokusai's most successful series, "Thirty-six Views of Mt. Fuji" and astonishing for its fantastic composition and powerful brushwork, showing a giant wave crashing over a boat. The low-angle perspective and shaded waves constitute the key to this work which is one of the foremost masterpieces, and most well known of all the ukiyo-e landscape compositions.

Hokusai produced his very first print in 1779 at the age of twenty. It was an actor print in the hosoban format signed Katsukawa Shunro. He built his career by creating more actor prints but was mainly active as a book illustrator.Hokusai also produced paintings throughout his life and his works surpassed those of other ukiyo-e masters in terms of both quality and quantity. He began to draw designs for large, single-sheet prints after the age of seventy. At this time he also started to produce landscape and flowers and birds prints; late in life he did however again concentrate on book illustrations and paintings. In summary Hokusai can be said to have contributed greatly to the field of ukiyo-e in a variety of ways.

Price

¥18,000
Quantity:
Size/WeightPrint Size: 26.4 × 38.6 cm
MaterialPaper: Echizen Kizuki Hosho Washi made by Living National Treasure, Ichibei Iwano
FeatureType of print: Woodcut Print
NotesThis product includes:
・An explanation of the work in English and Japanese
・A leaflet to introduce the production process of ukiyo-e print

Adachi's Philosophy and Mission

At Adachi Institute of Woodcut Prints, we create attractive works that are in keeping with the times while maintaining the basics of traditional woodcut printing techniques.

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Adachi's Meticulous Quality and Materials

At Adachi Institute of Woodcut Prints, we use carefully selected materials and tools to bring out the original beauty of woodcut prints to the fullest.

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Traditional Techniques and Adachi's Artisans

The production of ukiyo-e, which developed as a commercial printing method, focused on efficiency and profitability. And so, all processes are streamlined and sophisticated. We will introduce the basics of ukiyo-e techniques through the production process of Katsushika Hokusai's masterpiece "The Great Wave off Kanagawa."

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