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> 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 W

> 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 ago
Its certainly one of the most influential. The style still echoes in modern anime Japanese animation.
gus_massa 2y ago
In 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 ago
  The results are almost all ranking paintings, and the Great Wave is not a painting.
  - msephton 2y ago
    Exactly this.
  - teo_zero 2y ago
    The parent post didn't say it's not present. In fact it's at the 26th place. So the ranking does not exclude non-paintings.
zwayhowder 2y ago
One 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...
- seszett 2y ago
  > 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. Well, I'm French and it's the same for me. I think what Americans (and the British? I know Henry VIII is a king if England, even if I have no idea how many wives he could have had) greatly overestimate how shared their culture is in the western world. Though living in Belgium I've noticed the Flemish are much more aware of such American things than we are, so maybe it's just the French who aren't well integrated into the "global western" culture.
- KPGv2 2y ago
  > She knew the Backstreet Boys & One Direction, but not Take That nor East 17 Not even Americans are likely to know who Take That and East 17 are. I'm a middle-aged American, university educated, have even lived abroad, and most in my circle of equally educated and well-traveled friends would consider particularly hip to cultural trends of the late 20th century. I've literally never even heard of East 17, and I am vaguely aware of Take That being a band, but if you hadn't included them in the same sentence as BSB and 1D (whose members I cannot name except for Zane and Harry, plus there's an Irish guy??), I wouldn't have even clocked "oh yeah, that's a band I've heard mentioned a couple times in my life"
tptacek 2y ago
Well, both the Met and the Art Institute of Chicago disagree with you on that. One thing that'll throw you off, mentioned in the article: the Wave isn't a painting, and if you look for artwork rankings (it's the Internet, of course these exist) they tend to rank paintings. The Waves at the Art Institute aren't their most iconic, popular pieces; that honor probably goes to Seurat's Sunday Afternoon. I should get back over there soon. It's been forever.
- KPGv2 2y ago
  > The Waves at the Art Institute aren't their most iconic, popular pieces; that honor probably goes to Seurat's Sunday Afternoon. Well, there's only one Sunday Afternoon, but if you have a few thousand dollars, you, too, can own an original Waves, since there's no such thing as "the" original when you're talking about collecting prints. Much like there isn't a "one" Warhol soup can painting. These artists' works were infinitely replicable even in their own day. That's why in the Japanese art world, prints produced in the artist's lifetime are all considered original because they would've all been made by the same hand, or an assistant's. EDIT: After googling, it appears that it's estimated 8,000 copies of the Great Wave were made by Hokusai, but that few of them still exist. That's surprising to me, honestly. One recently sold for $2.7 million, apparently, and I couldn't believe that search result. My mistake! EDIT 2: That being said, the British Museum alone owns three original Great Wave copies.
  - tptacek 2y ago
    Right, the question here is whether the Wave itself is among the world's most famous works of art; the answer seems pretty clearly to be "yes". I threw the Seurat thing in as sort of a preemptive rebuttal to the idea that the Art Institute would hype up the Waves just because it has them. :)
  - wglb 2y ago
    According to the article: > The Art Institute is fortunate to have three prints of The Great Wave, all original editions.
  - ahazred8ta 2y ago
timthorn 2y ago
Not that a single data point is particularly useful, but I'd never come across it before reading the article.
SoftTalker 2y ago
I agree, reading the subject article is the first time I've ever seen it that I can remember.
msephton 2y ago
I think the Great Wave would be high on the most recognisable chart.

spaceman_2020 2y ago

Its certainly one of the most influential. The style still echoes in modern anime Japanese animation.

gus_massa 2y ago

In 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 ago
The results are almost all ranking paintings, and the Great Wave is not a painting.
- msephton 2y ago
  Exactly this.
- teo_zero 2y ago
  The parent post didn't say it's not present. In fact it's at the 26th place. So the ranking does not exclude non-paintings.

zwayhowder 2y ago

One 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...

seszett 2y ago
> 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. Well, I'm French and it's the same for me. I think what Americans (and the British? I know Henry VIII is a king if England, even if I have no idea how many wives he could have had) greatly overestimate how shared their culture is in the western world. Though living in Belgium I've noticed the Flemish are much more aware of such American things than we are, so maybe it's just the French who aren't well integrated into the "global western" culture.
KPGv2 2y ago
> She knew the Backstreet Boys & One Direction, but not Take That nor East 17 Not even Americans are likely to know who Take That and East 17 are. I'm a middle-aged American, university educated, have even lived abroad, and most in my circle of equally educated and well-traveled friends would consider particularly hip to cultural trends of the late 20th century. I've literally never even heard of East 17, and I am vaguely aware of Take That being a band, but if you hadn't included them in the same sentence as BSB and 1D (whose members I cannot name except for Zane and Harry, plus there's an Irish guy??), I wouldn't have even clocked "oh yeah, that's a band I've heard mentioned a couple times in my life"

tptacek 2y ago

Well, both the Met and the Art Institute of Chicago disagree with you on that. One thing that'll throw you off, mentioned in the article: the Wave isn't a painting, and if you look for artwork rankings (it's the Internet, of course these exist) they tend to rank paintings. The Waves at the Art Institute aren't their most iconic, popular pieces; that honor probably goes to Seurat's Sunday Afternoon. I should get back over there soon. It's been forever.

KPGv2 2y ago
> The Waves at the Art Institute aren't their most iconic, popular pieces; that honor probably goes to Seurat's Sunday Afternoon. Well, there's only one Sunday Afternoon, but if you have a few thousand dollars, you, too, can own an original Waves, since there's no such thing as "the" original when you're talking about collecting prints. Much like there isn't a "one" Warhol soup can painting. These artists' works were infinitely replicable even in their own day. That's why in the Japanese art world, prints produced in the artist's lifetime are all considered original because they would've all been made by the same hand, or an assistant's. EDIT: After googling, it appears that it's estimated 8,000 copies of the Great Wave were made by Hokusai, but that few of them still exist. That's surprising to me, honestly. One recently sold for $2.7 million, apparently, and I couldn't believe that search result. My mistake! EDIT 2: That being said, the British Museum alone owns three original Great Wave copies.
- tptacek 2y ago
  Right, the question here is whether the Wave itself is among the world's most famous works of art; the answer seems pretty clearly to be "yes". I threw the Seurat thing in as sort of a preemptive rebuttal to the idea that the Art Institute would hype up the Waves just because it has them. :)
- wglb 2y ago
  According to the article: > The Art Institute is fortunate to have three prints of The Great Wave, all original editions.
- ahazred8ta 2y ago

timthorn 2y ago

Not that a single data point is particularly useful, but I'd never come across it before reading the article.

SoftTalker 2y ago

I agree, reading the subject article is the first time I've ever seen it that I can remember.

msephton 2y ago

I think the Great Wave would be high on the most recognisable chart.