The Great Wave off Kanagawa

The Great Wave off Kanagawa is Japan's most recognizable artwork, a woodblock print showing fishing boats threatened by a towering wave with Mount Fuji visible in the distance. Created around 1831 by Katsushika Hokusai, it was part of his series "Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji." The print's dynamic composition influenced Western artists from Monet to Van Gogh.

Hokusai was over 70 when he created this image, having spent decades perfecting his craft. The crashing wave forms a perfect frame for tiny Fuji, inverting traditional Japanese art's emphasis on the sacred mountain. Western influence appears in the use of Prussian blue, a recently imported synthetic pigment. The print cost about as much as a bowl of noodles when first sold.

Multiple impressions exist in museums worldwide, each varying slightly due to the woodblock printing process and different stages of the edition.