The Great Wave off Kanagawa.

About the Artist

Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849) is considered one of the greatest artists in Japanese history and one of the masters of the Japanese woodblock print. He lived in a time of great peace and prosperity in Japan, known as the Edo period (1603-1868). The city of Edo (present-day Tokyo) bustled with cultural activities and a newly wealthy merchant class who celebrated the pleasures of life in restaurants, teahouses, and theaters. Japanese artists responded to this burgeoning cultural life in the city by illustrating popular novels, issuing modestly priced woodblock prints of famous kabuki theater actors, and portraying local scenes. The popular pictorial style of these artists is usually called ukiyo-e, or pictures of the floating world, referring to the Buddhist sense of the transience of earthly beauty and joy. Hokusai worked as a woodblock carver in his teen years and later studied with the master of actor prints, Katsukawa Shunsho. Hokusai gained recognition for his Edo townscapes and illustrations of popular novels. In 1796, he adopted the name Hokusai, meaning Northern Studio. Scholars say the name was probably chosen in reverence for the goddess of the Northern Star, Hokushin myojin. By the early nineteenth century, he was famous in Japan, primarily for his landscapes.

About the Artwork

The Great Wave off Kanagawa is perhaps the most famous woodblock print in a series by Hokusai called Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji, published in 1831, when the artist was over seventy years old. The series was so popular that the blocks were used until they wore out and new blocks had to be carved. Thousands of prints from this series still exist in museums and private collections today. In this dramatic scene, a huge, claw-like wave is ready to crash down on the tiny boats below. The people in the boats huddle together against the overwhelming power of the sea. Mount Fuji, motionless and serene, anchors the center of the composition. Its snow-capped peak resembles the waves with their white-foam edges. Known as "Fuji-san," Mount Fuji is the highest mountain in Japan at 12,385 feet. It has been worshipped as a sacred mountain and visited as a tourist destination for hundreds of years. Hokusai's series Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji and his subsequent One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji (1834-35) are a testament to his artistic creativity and his reverence for this beloved mountain.

A Closer Look at Japanese Woodblock Prints

By the late eighteenth century, Japanese woodblock printing had developed into a highly precise art form. Creating a woodblock print required coordination between the artist, the carver, and the printer. Hokusai supplied the original ink drawing on thin paper to a carver, who translated his design onto cherrywood blocks. The carver pasted the original work face down on a block of wood, often brushed on a light coating of oil to make the paper more transparent, and then chiseled around the lines leaving the original design standing in relief. For a print with more than one color, the carver would create separate woodblocks for each color. Finally, the printer applied black ink to the first block and transferred the design onto moistened paper, and repeated the process for each additional color block, one by one. It was the publisher's job to coordinate these activities and distribute the prints to stores or independent salesmen. Japanese woodblock prints such as The Great Wave off Kanagawa were highly acclaimed by Europeans and Americans and had a strong influence on Impressionist and Postimpressionist artists.

Resources

Web

www.artic.edu/aic/collections/asian/highlights View selected works from the Art Institute of Chicago's extensive Asian art department, including woodblock prints by Katsukawa Shunsho, Hokusai, and others.

Books

Forrer, Matthi, with texts by Edmond de Goncourt. Hokusai. Rizzoli, 1988.

Lee, Sherman E. A History of Far Eastern Art, fifth edition. Harry N. Abrams, 1994.

Ray, Deborah Kogan. 2001. Hokusai: The Man Who Painted a Mountain. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2001. Nonfiction, ages 7-12. The illustrations and text help to explain how Japanese woodblock prints were made. The story develops to show how Hokusai perfected his own art, from childhood sketches to his influential landscape series.

Ulak, James T. Japanese Prints in the Art Institute of Chicago. Art Institute of Chicago and Abbeville, 1995.

RELATED ARTICLE: Classroom activities.

Elementary

Have students examine The Great Wave off Kanagawa and then choose a favorite place or feature of the natural landscape in their own environment. Make a series of landscape drawings or paintings of that place. Students may wish to depict several views of the same place or explore different effects of weather and time of day on the landscape. Bind the series into books or display them in the classroom.

Middle School

Ask students to write about a landscape they particularly like near their home or school. If possible, have students complete the assignment while viewing that landscape. What does the place say to them? Is there a story unfolding within this environment? How might they portray this story in a series of drawings? Would they include animals and people or depict certain activities?

Extended Activity for Elementary/Middle School

Study the geography of Japan and find Mt. Fuji on a map. Which bodies of water are nearby? What other activities might Hokusai have included in his views of the mountain?

High School

Use blocks of linoleum to create four views of something in the natural environment. Students may choose to illustrate an element of nature, such as a tree, in four seasons. They may want to show the sky during various weather conditions.

Variation: Have students make black-ink landscape drawing. Photocopy the original and ask students to hand-color the copies, altering the appearance of the original line drawing. How do different colors affect the mood of the composition? Which view do they prefer?