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Things to know about the Great Wave
- kaycebasques 2y agoWow! Never thought about it like this before: > Because Japanese text is read from right to left, the earliest viewers of The Great Wave would have likely read the print that way too, first encountering the boaters and then meeting the great claw of water about to swallow them. So instead of riding along with the gargantuan wave as you might in a left-to-right reading, they would face right into the massive wall of ocean. Reversed image from the article to demonstrate: https://artic-web.imgix.net/5c05c38c-1c80-446f-a3db-4b95b42ed2c9/TheGreatWaveReversed.jpg?rect=0%2C0%2C3000%2C2039&auto=format%2Ccompress&q=80&fit=crop&crop=faces%2Ccenter&w=1000&h=680 https://artic-web.imgix.net/5c05c38c-1c80-446f-a3db-4b95b42e...
- AnonHP 2y agoHistorical Japanese text, written vertically, is read top to bottom and right to left (like in those prints). On the other hand, more modern text (including what’s more common now) is read left to right when written horizontally. There are some more variations on directionality. Nevertheless, the picture does look and convey a different impression when flipped.
- anigbrowl 2y agoThis is true of documents, text messages, social media etc., but most books, magazines and other printed matter are still done vertically and R-L.
- cubefox 2y agoWow, I didn't know that! I thought vertical text was a thing of the past. Interesting.
- wccrawford 2y agoI'm probably lower-intermediate at Japanese, so take this with a grain of salt. I find that reading vertical text feels better, even though I first learned to read horizontal text. I don't know if this is all in my mind, or it really does have some appeal to it, though.
- aikinai 2y agoI’m not native, but have read and spoken Japanese fluently for almost twenty years. I still can’t get used to and hate vertical text. Maybe it’s because 99% of my Japanese context is business-related or on devices (computer, phone) and I don’t read novels, manga, etc.
- wccrawford 2y agoAh, yeah, my main motivation is reading light novels, and I've actually read a few really easy ones. I've also read manga, but it's hard to find any that I like that are also at my level. I'm not sure how I'd feel if the vast majority of my usage had been horizontal instead.
- roenxi 2y agoA typical eye is stronger at up-down motion and weaker at left-right motion. That comes up sometimes when adding rules (guidelines) to tables.
- KPGv2 2y agoI own a bunch of novels in Japanese, and every single one is vertically-written. Same with all the comic books I own. I think maybe a couple children's manga I had years ago were horizontally-written, but we're talking something I haven't laid eyes on in decades, so I might be mis-remembering.
- n_plus_1_acc 2y agoMangas often mix and match, depenfong on what best fits the image.
- bdowling 2y agoIt’s rare in modern times, but sometimes you may encounter a sign board written horizontally right-to-left, as in this sign above the front entrance to the Nippon Budōkan: https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nippon_Budokan_-_2024_feb_16_various_04_28_59_925000.jpeg https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nippon_Budokan_-_2...
- yumraj 2y agoHow does one know whether to read left to right or right to left? Or is it clear from the text?
- rococode 2y agoIt's usually clear from context. That sign in particular says "Martial Arts Hall" ("budokan" / 武道館) from right to left. Imagine an alternate universe where English could also be read left-to-right or right-to-left. If you were to see a sign saying "Hall Arts Martial", you'd immediately know the right way to read it.
- fsckboy 2y agoCheap Trick was live at a martial arts hall?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- aikinai 2y agotxetnoC
- skhr0680 2y agoHorizontal right-to-left was common historically
- kinj28 2y agoI wonder the logic and even history of why right to left came into being. Is there any benefit in choosing a directionality of one vs another. One thing that comes to my mind- book binding is done on the left edge of the book/news paper. So if folds are created you would go read left paper first and then to the right. Now if you are parsing left to right at higher level- At lower level wouldn’t it become consistency of UX to offer left to right reading?
- blululu 2y agoIt’s kinda of arbitrary. For ink:graphite writing top to bottom and right to left has the advantage of not smudging for right handers. For more durable media (carving/etching/chiseling) I think it is more arbitrary.
- mbg721 2y agoBoustrophedon (alternating left-to-right and right-to-left) was used sometimes in ancient Greek, so that your eyes didn't have to jump to the beginning of the next line.
- wisty 2y agoEven manga translated into English is right-to-left with the first page (in English) scolding you for opening the book at the back, and telling you how to follow the text. Also fans of some manga (especially One Piece?) will talk about how the comics will make use of this sense of right to left, with subtle timing, action, or causality often being from right to left (if Star Wars was a manga, Han would shoot from the right of the frame).
- ginko 2y agoI think that's just the natural direction to draw a wave as a right handed person.
- jasonjamerson 2y agoInteresting. It's a woodblock print, so I think it would have been created backwards from the final product?
- pm215 2y agoThe description of the Japanese woodblock printing process in https://education.asianart.org/resources/the-ukiyo-e-woodblock-printing-process/ https://education.asianart.org/resources/the-ukiyo-e-woodblo... says that the artist's initial drawing is pasted face down on the woodblock, which is then carved to match it. So (unless I've got myself confused) the final print will be the same way round as the artist's drawing. This also means that text in the image (like the title and the artist's signature) come out the right way round.
- jasonjamerson 2y agoOh nice. Thanks!
- litenboll 2y agoI feel really dumb, but I have never even noticed the boats. In the reversed I see them very clearly, but in the original the wave is completely dominating the view (now I see the boats of course, but my focus is completely on the wave by default).
- shepherdjerred 2y agoMe too! I'd only ever noticed the waves
- plasma_beam 2y agoEven dumber, I never noticed Mt. Fuji was in the pic, focus was truly on the wave.
- msephton 2y agoIn some prints Fuji is coloured to look like a small wave (my personal preference) but in later prints is coloured differently to stand out.
- twelvechairs 2y agoWorth noting the color of the boats varies from white to yellow to dark brown in the various prints, so sometimes they appear far more obviously than others.
- albert_e 2y agoI am in the same ..err ...boat. I am now convinced there is a strong element of left-to-right versus right-to-left in the way we process images. Fascinating!
- edanm 2y agoThis happened to me too! I'm not sure if it's the left-to-right thing though, that sounds a bit unlikely to me. Specifically that it's tied to the language we use. (For the record I probably default to reading left-to-right, though I also read and write in Hebrew which is RTL.)
- 1970-01-01 2y agoMy eyes first see the large wave in both photos.
- megatron2009 2y agoI don't feel any difference in both the images.
- bloopernova 2y agoI have several versions of this, I just enjoy looking at them. I have a desk mat, Lego set, and my favourite: https://shop.kozyndan.com/products/uprisings-poster https://shop.kozyndan.com/products/uprisings-poster Would the original be considered impressionist?
- benkuykendall 2y agoNo. Hokusai pre-dated Impressionism by a couple of decades, but his work was known in Paris and almost certainly influenced the movement. Also worth noting this particular work's influence on Impressionist music: see the cover of Debussy's La Mer.
- bloopernova 2y agoThank you for a great answer :)
- spondylosaurus 2y agoThe Lego set is gorgeous. I was impressed that the finished design has built-in hardware in case you want to hang it on a wall!
- 15856245092 2y ago[flagged]
- parpfish 2y agoI’ve been seeing this print my entire life, but last year was the first time I realized that there were boats and Mount Fuji. I was always so captivated by the claws on the wave that i never looked away from them
- Loughla 2y agoAnd here I am never even noticing the claws.
- adrianN 2y agoThere is a very good multi part video about creating a facsimile of the print on YouTube https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jAhiMCSvtCc https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jAhiMCSvtCc
- koffiedrinker 2y agoI own his version of the Great Wave print, it's fabulous. I also recommend watching the playlist on YouTube to get a better understanding of how these prints are made as the article linked does not really explain or show you anything about the print making itself.
- adamgordonbell 2y agoI first encountered it in a class where we looked at the whole series. It gives this sense of Japan being very diverse of setting, but always in the shadows of Fuji. I've not been to Japan, and not sure of the accuracy of the size of Fuji but it does make it feel like wherever you are, Fuji is there watching.
- norir 2y agoIt is really awe inspiring to be in the presence of a great mountain like that. I was once driving up to Bend, Oregon (where I'd never been) at night with a friend and didn't notice Mt. Shasta on the horizon as we approached. At some point I looked over to my right and it was looming directly above us. It was almost scary. I had a visceral reaction to its presence. Not dissimilar to the experience of seeing the grand canyon for the first time in person.
- rachofsunshine 2y agoPosters who have been to Seattle on a sunny day in summer may have a point of reference. Mount Rainier, at a bit over 14,000 feet, is just a bit taller than Mt. Fuji (a bit over 12,000), and both are similarly-shaped stratovolcanoes. Kanagawa Prefecture (the "Kanagawa" in the print's name) is part of the greater Tokyo area, so a wave "off Kanagawa" is either in Tokyo Bay or in the Pacific just outside of it. Wikipedia's analysis suggests the perspective is from southern Tokyo Bay, around 60 miles from the peak of Mount Fuji. And downtown Seattle is, as it happens, about 60 miles from the peak of Mount Rainier. So the view of Rainier from Seattle is quite similar to the view from of Fuji in the print. The view from Tokyo proper would place Fuji slightly smaller than Rainier, since Tokyo is slightly more distant from Fuji than Seattle is from Rainier, and since Fuji is the slightly smaller of the two mountains.
- wslh 2y agoTrue, Mount Aconcagua (~23,000 feet) is way taller, but it doesn’t feel as dramatic as Fuji or Rainier because it’s surrounded by other big peaks in the Andes. Kilimanjaro could be another one to compare since it’s tall and stands out on its own like Fuji and Rainier, but there’s something about Fuji’s perfect symmetry that really sets it apart. If you’re looking for another mountain with that kind of shape, check out Mount Mayon, it’s smaller, but the cone is almost perfect.
- xxr 2y agoThis is another great introduction to the piece that provides an economic background to the subject: https://youtu.be/hGxIS6Vj0cM https://youtu.be/hGxIS6Vj0cM. In a way it’s similar to a lot of the WPA posters in the US or socialist realist labor posters from the USSR.
- bazzargh 2y agoMy own toots-worth of code version for the bbcmicrobot https://mastodon.me.uk/@bbcmicrobot/111846600975531195 https://mastodon.me.uk/@bbcmicrobot/111846600975531195 Mandelbrot wrote about the Great Wave having fractal like properties (eg here in an interview https://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/obrist10/obrist10_index.html https://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/obrist10/obrist10_index.htm...) but I hadn't seen an attempt to use a fractal to draw it; good subjects for the bbcmicrobot use repetition to help fit the code in so it suggested itself.
- danielvaughn 2y agoI've always loved this piece of art, and other similar works. One of my favorite contemporary Japanese artists borrows from that tradition, and I never get a chance to plug her work so I'll link to it here. Her name is Asuka Ohsawa: https://www.asukaohsawa.com/drawings-2#/archive/ https://www.asukaohsawa.com/drawings-2#/archive/
- sieste 2y agoI love this style. You say "one of my favourite", can you recommend more artists in that genre?
- danielvaughn 2y agoHer exact style is fairly unique, which is why I’m such a fan. But another great example is Hisashi Tenmyouya: http://tenmyouya.com http://tenmyouya.com If the strong graphic lines are what appeal to you, I could also recommend Takashi Murakami. He’s somewhat polar opposite of the previous two, but I love his work as well: https://www.takaoka-art.com/collections/takashi-murakami https://www.takaoka-art.com/collections/takashi-murakami And finally, my favorite contemporary artist period is named James Jean, a Taiwanese artist: http://www.jamesjean.com/ http://www.jamesjean.com/
- morbicer 2y agoMy first association is Jed Henry's fun postmodern take https://www.outregallery.com/collections/jed-henry https://www.outregallery.com/collections/jed-henry https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/i4ny20/jed_henrys_ancient_japanese_game_characters/ https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/i4ny20/jed_henrys_a...
- teo_zero 2y ago> If not the most famous artwork in the world Wait, what?? Am I the only one who thinks this sentence is off by an order of magnitude? I'd bet that the Great Wave is not even one of the 10 most famous. Unfortunately I have no evidence to support my statement...
- spaceman_2020 2y agoIts certainly one of the most influential. The style still echoes in modern anime Japanese animation.
- gus_massa 2y agoIn https://www.google.com/search?q=famous+artwork https://www.google.com/search?q=famous+artwork I got it at the 26th position. The search gives a few lists, but all of them feel western-biased.
- teractiveodular 2y agoThe results are almost all ranking paintings, and the Great Wave is not a painting.
- zwayhowder 2y agoOne thing that I fully internalised only recently - despite learning Asian languages for literally decades. The things western people take for granted as ubiquitous in our culture are often unknown to Asian cultures. As an example recently talking to a Japanese friend who is the same age as me we realised she had seen less than 10% of the movies that "everyone born in the early 80's has seen". She didn't know who OJ Simpson was, nor is she familiar with Henry VIII and his 6 wives. She knew the Backstreet Boys & One Direction, but not Take That nor East 17. Traveling in China a few years ago I was surprised to see many Hokusai images used on clothing and shop decorations. The Mona Lisa might be the western world's most famous artwork, but you rarely see it on a T-shirt unless you're meeting a tourist near the Louvre. I suspect that if both were in still trademarked that Hokusai would be making orders of magnitude more on royalties than Da Vinci...
- smitty1e 2y agoMy claim to fame in life is having hauled a highland bagpipe up Mt. Fuji and blown "Amazing Grace" at the summit. Which is a terrible idea. The air pressure at that altitude does not support driving four reeds, especially through a splitting headache.
- msephton 2y agoWell done, though!
- perihelions 2y ago- "Japanese woodblock prints are particularly affected by exposure to light that can fade their colors and damage the paper they’re printed on. “It’s always a balancing act between wanting to show works like The Great Wave so that our visitors have a chance to experience them and preserving these works for the future,” Katz says. “We work closely with our conservators to set the parameters for the display of works on paper.”" Imagine if there were quantum-mechanical minds that were able to appreciate quantum-mechanical art, but, the very act of contemplating, comprehending the art irreversibly degraded it. What a beautifully sad thought! A stark finiteness, like NFT's for conscious experiences. Dyes are destroyed by the very light that illuminates them to visibility. Observation is destructive.
- kragen 2y agothey can be, especially textile dyes, but in this case i think it's more the paper and binders that are damaged. prussian blue is quite light-stable despite containing iron ions, and there are plenty of black and white pigments that are light-stable over even geological time
- radpanda 2y agoI’d imagine somewhere there’s an engineer-artist putting such a print in a brightly lit locked box, which is programmed not to open until the interior light has shined long enough to eradicate the image on the print. (No idea if we have circuitry and LEDs that last long enough to make such a thing feasible).
- Tepix 2y agoUse thermopaper. Problem solved
- layer8 2y agoThat’s how food works.
- layer8 2y agoAnother thing to know is that the prints aren’t all the same: https://www.britishmuseum.org/blog/great-wave-spot-difference https://www.britishmuseum.org/blog/great-wave-spot-differenc... Also, here’s a nice Lego version: https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2020/12/jumpei-mitsui-great-wave-lego/ https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2020/12/jumpei-mitsui-great-w...
- msephton 2y agoThis is mentioned in the article. Art Institute of Chicago have 3 prints and show them next to each other so we can see the differences.
- somishere 2y agoI remember reading that many of the prints attributed to Hokusai are likely imitations of what was a fairly well known style at the time. Not sure how much truth there is to it? Can't find anything saying as much in a quick google. As an aside, I have a large print of the great wave by my front door. It's such a powerful image. I was also surprised how easy it is to find quality, quite old woodblock prints in Japan at very reasonable prices (tho not by masters!).
- fuzzythinker 2y ago"All I have done before the age of 70 is not worth bothering with" - Katsushika Hokusai (He began the series when he was 70 years old) This quote and fact alone gave me hope. Hope I can remember it when the time comes.
- hiisukun 2y agoOne thing that strikes me about this work, and Hokusai's other very popular wood block prints, is that he was a total perfectionist. He would get things juuuust right, with the colour and the production process, with each copy made, then score/scratch the original so further prints could not be made to a different fashion/standard. For him to be alive and see bright and garish "Great wave" socks, jumpers, room rugs, key rings and the like would probably cause him such a great conniption he'd drop right back dead again. But such is the life of popular art work -- it survives its creator and lives by new rules over time.
- msephton 2y agoHokusai only drew the original sketch as a watercolour. A team of other people did the carving, colouring, printing all overseen by the publisher.
- NaOH 2y agoThe site Great Wave Today maintains a list of where it is on display: https://greatwavetoday.com https://greatwavetoday.com
- msephton 2y agoJust in case people aren't aware the article is to promote that the Art Institute of Chicago have one of their three prints of The Great Wave on view for the first time in 5 years. (I suspect they'll rotate through all 3 prints over the next few months to minimise how much each one is in light).
- dekhn 2y agoI love the Great Wave and have spent a lot of time trying to get my laser engraver to make a good image of it. The entire series is excellent. If you enjoy his work, I highly recommend checking out some of this others, such as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dream_of_the_Fisherman%27s_Wife https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dream_of_the_Fisherman%27s...