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Comment by fegu | Hacker News Reader

"[] the rich shade of blue used in the prints was imported from Europe. Prussian blue, as it's commonly known, was a synthetic color created in the 18th century and prized for its depth and durability. That Hokusai employed the hue as the principal actor in his oceanic drama suggests that he was depicting Japan on the cusp of change."

Or he just liked this new blue colour that was now available, he needed blue for his waves, and we shouldn't read more into it than that.

"As much as the wave portends instability and danger, it also suggests possibility and adventure."

To some viewers, perhaps. But the wording makes it sound like this was the original artist's idea - and of this we have no idea.

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The color mentioned, Prussian blue, has a particular history with regards to Japanese art. Remember that at the time, imports were banned in Japan and thus to even own the color was something of a rarity. Based on the contemporary situation and his own history and interest in Western culture and art, it's pretty likely that Hokusai chose the color deliberately, and not simply that he liked blue "because he wanted it for the waves." Remember that he was nearly 70 years old when he started working on Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji. Typically artists at that level of experience don't choose to use rare new materials just for kicks.

Hokusai was one of the first Japanese printmakers to boldly embrace the colour, a decision that would have major implications in the world of art. Using it extensively in his series Thirty Six Views of Mount Fuji (1830), of which the Great Wave was the first, the pigment especially lent itself to expressing both depth in water and distance, crucial atmospheric qualities to render land and seascapes.

Hokusai drew influence from a particular “Rangakusha” (scholar of Dutch texts) painter named Shiba Kokan, who experimented with European principles of composition. In The Great Wave, Hokusai abandoned traditional Japanese isometric view, where motifs were scaled according to importance, and instead adopted the dynamic style of Western perspective featuring intersecting lines of sight.

In short: the work itself incorporates deep influences from European art. Ergo, it's pretty standard art criticism to assume that the choice of materials and colors were also chosen deliberately.

http://theconversation.com/friday-essay-from-the-great-wave-...

Of course he chose the pigment deliberately. The question is if he chose it because of its visual effect (and price and chemical properties) or because of some symbolic meaning in the history of the pigment.

Choosing a pigment for its color is not the same as choosing it "just for kicks". The entire purpose of a pigment is to create color!

Clearly the most likely answer is "for both reasons", as I explained in the parent comment. He had an interest in Western art, the work itself incorporates Western techniques, the pigment was rare and associated with (Western) modernity, and its particular qualities made it suited for his visual goals. It would not make much sense to note that he made all of these decisions to highlight a changing Japan / new influences from the West, but say that he only chose Prussian blue because it looked nice.

This is not really an uncommon occurrence; artists choose materials for their visual appearance and symbolic meaning all the time. Klimt's use of gold leaf is a similar example.

Klimt's use of gold was inspired by a trip he had made to Italy in 1903. When he visited Ravenna he saw the Byzantine mosaics in the Church of San Vitale. For Klimt, the flatness of the mosaics and their lack of perspective and depth only enhanced their golden brilliance, and he started to make unprecedented use of gold and silver leaf in his own work

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kiss_(Klimt)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustav_Klimt#Golden_phase_and_...

I think the point of the parent poster is that artists (like Klimt) often choose their materials because they want to achieve a certain effect, not because they want to signal a certain concept or relationship to a specific situation. Klimt did not choose that color and material to signal a return to Byzantium mores or some particular link to the Eastern Italian coast, but because it suited his imagery - that had classic influences but was unmistakably something else and new.

Similarly, I agree that linking Hokusai’s use of a new blue to a particular will of representing a changing Japanese society, is a big overreach without other corroborating evidence. It makes much more sense that he was simply an artist who was still at the peak of his powers and enjoyed innovating into his late years. It’s like aged architects embracing new materials when they become available - not because they represent this or that, but simply because they work better and open new possibilities.

I would think we should look at it somewhere in the middle. We can't truly know what Hokusai was thinking, or even if he truly understood the forces in his mind. But the art now has a life of its own. It represents just as much for him as it can for us.

Even the fact that a Japanist artist decided to look to Prussia for a certain color could suggest that Japan, or at least Hokusai, was opening up to the world, and to globalism and industrialism.

I like to remember James Joyce's words in Ulysses: "The supreme question about a work of art is out of how deep a life does it spring."

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