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Ukiyo-e · c. 1831
Katsushika Hokusai 1760–1849
The Met · New York
A great offshore swell rears into claws of foam above tiny boats, with Mount Fuji small in the distance — the most famous image in Japanese art.
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The world it was painted in, the life of the painter, and a close reading of the details. This film is free in Hear Art.
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Chapter 1 of 7
Around eighteen thirty-one, in the city of Edo — today's Tokyo — an artist in his seventies named Katsushika Hokusai cuts this image into woodblocks. It is the first print in a series, Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji. Not a painting but a print — thousands were pulled — and it would travel the world and reshape Western art.
And the first thing to know: it is not a tsunami.
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