The 'Great Wave' has mystified art lovers for generations (2019) | Hacker News Reader

The 'Great Wave' has mystified art lovers for generations (2019)

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You may find David Bull's youtube content interesting. He is a Japanese woodblock printer living in Asakusa, Tokyo, where he runs a print shop. In 2015 he did a reproduction of the Great Wave and documented the progress online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAhiMCSvtCc&list=PLK-Wicsj5r...

Love that series. Totally worth the time to watch it. I bought a small print of his after watching it and it’s so cool.

This is fantastic! I've been wanting "traditional" woodblock prints of Hokusai's Great Wave (and all thirty-six views if I'm being honest) for quite some time..

I got on the wait list for Great Wave and purchased a print of Thread of Tears.

Everything I know about Japanese wood carving is from David Bull's channel. Great content.

I bought one of these. I've yet to actually display it.

Beware the import charges!

I like the technique of wood block printing, but I'm not hugely taken with the cartoony nature of some of his prints.

This might be the best YouTube rabbit hole I've ever fallen down. Thank you for posting it!

I finally managed to buy one of the prints of his Great Wave last year and it's a very beautiful thing.

Love these two quotes by Hokusai (source: http://hokusai.us.com/quotes_en ):

“From the age of six I had a mania for drawing the shapes of things. When I was fifty I had published a universe of designs. But all I have done before the age of seventy is not worth bothering with. At seventy-five I'll have learned something of the pattern of nature, of animals, of plants, of trees, birds, fish and insects. When I am eighty you will see real progress. At ninety I shall have cut my way deeply into the mystery of life itself. At one hundred, I shall be a marvellous artist. At 110, everything I create; a dot, a line, will jump to life as never before. To all of you who are going to live as long as I do, I promise to keep my word. I am writing this in my old age. I used to call myself Hokusai, but today I sign myself The Old Man Mad About Drawing."

"If heaven had granted me five more years, I could have become a real painter."

My favorite Hokusai fact is that he is also credited with inventing tentacle porn.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dream_of_the_Fisherman%27s...

TIL it's only 3 clicks from "The Great Wave" to "La Blue Girl" on wikipedia...

He also apparently never lived in the same place long. He’d move instead of cleaning anything.

I've often thought about building a house from waterproof materials with floor drains and just hosing the whole thing down. You'd have to move furniture but getting to use a pressure washer is its own reward, I think.

This was a 1950s-ish fantasy house-of-the-future conceit — along with plates you don't clean because they're chemically recycled after one use — No, I lie, it's because they melt and go down the drain with your wastewater.

Internet articles covering this tend to vanish after a short while but consider https://www.treehugger.com/vision-city-future-not-far-realit...

Agree, with how dirty kids/pets/adults left to their own devices can be it’s a wonder this hasn’t been a thing before now. I bet it’s hard to get anything waterproof that’d feel like a bedroom/living room space.

Ah, the centuries old ゴミ屋敷 (gomi yashiki) tradition...

As the article mentions, the use of the new blue pigment was a critical part of the image's immediate success and ubiquity. Obviously the image needed to be great to maintain it's popularity, but many hugely popular historic art pieces have some "shiny new" element that gives them that initial boost.

Ultramarine was a huge success in Renaissance art. The blue is still mesmerizing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultramarine

See Sassoferrato's Madonna:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sassoferrato_-_Jungf...

Turner and Van Gogh used this special Indian Yellow, imported from India, and made from the urine of cows fed mango leaves.

https://hinduaesthetic.medium.com/the-mystery-of-the-origin-...

It's a pity lead is so poisonous over time because white pigment made from lead is just superior for oil painting. Skin tones in particular glow in a way that just doesn't happen with other kinds of white. I bought a small quantity once from a local madman who claimed he made it from lead weights and horse manure and it was stunning stuff. Not worth the exposure risk in my opinion but the quality of the pigment was undeniable.

It can be safely used with proper precautions, but it's understandable why people shy away from it. Still, there is a huge difference between being "exposed" to lead paint from a piece of fine art vs living in a house whose entire inside is coated with the stuff and it's flaking off the walls.

Ultramarine wasn't just more expensive than gold, it was also ordered by area.

A painter's commission would say "...And such an such an area of ultramarine", the better to show off the buyer's wealth and status.

i wonder if the "shiny new" element is the fractal structure of the wave - at least it is the major impressive element for me here. While depiction is abstract, it is really captures and references the extremely important and powerful aspect of reality - the fractal structure of turbulence which we see as natural without paying much attention to it, yet it is one of the main things which separates real world from any simplified/abstract models of it.

Also for example the one of greatest work by Aivazovsky https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ninth_Wave#/media/File:Hov... Here the fractal structures at the tops of the waves are the major elements delivering the feeling of the raging water, the main point of the picture.

IIRC, the use of perspective to depict Mount Fuji as a small thing in the background was also an innovative thing in Japanese art at the time.

How does that explain it's enduring modern appeal?

There's maybe ten woodblocks with the potential for enduring modern appeal. But only one had an initial popularity spike that let it break through and claim enough cultural real estate to become self sufficient.

> There's maybe ten woodblocks with the potential for enduring modern appeal.

Do you have links to any of them? Is love to see others that are considered great.

I'm a big fan of both Dürer and Blake's woodcuts. Their appeal is certainly enduring, but I don't think any single work is as recognizable to the average person as the Great Wave.

I think I’d misinterpreted DylanDmitri’s comment as meaning there were 9 other Japanese woodcut masters.

It's mysterious but familiar enough to be easy to read and has a strong narrative. It has also become iconic. So it's reproduced more often than other 浮世絵 prints, and the public is more aware of it than of other art in the tradition.

It may also be worth observing that a lot of Japanese woodblock art is of very traditional subjects, e.g. somewhat stereotypical geisha scenes, upper-class women, etc.

A lot of Hokusai's work branched out as did some mode modern woodblock artists.

This is hardly unique to Japan. Look how many Madonna and Child or Crucifixion scenes there were in Renaissance paintings.

The article talks about how it influenced many artists from later generations, especially with impressionists. Impressionism was popular enough that researchers understood this through line pretty well. This image continues to influence artists today. Check out the cover of this Debussy composition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_mer_(Debussy). There aren't such homages on this scale to others like Yoshitoshi or Sharaku.

There were also a lot of prints of this thing, which means many museums can have a print and display it, so it reaches a larger audience that way, too. Visitors to LA, NY, Chicago, London, Brussels, and more have always been able to see a print.

From there, the image of the Great Wave exists in merchandising, which the article also mentions. Uniqlo made a shirt with the image printed all over it.

I really liked this older blog post about visually mirroring the Great Wave so you see the boatmen first: https://diamantia-kai-skouria.blogspot.com/2011/03/looking-a...

>Your initial focus was no longer on the overwhelming wave. Instead, your automatic visual scanning habits focused you first on the struggling boatmen and their descent into the wave as it begins to tumble over them.

Interesting! I was aware the Japanese (and other cultures) read from right to left, but it never occurred to me that this was also how they visually scanned paintings and images.

I wonder if this also explains something with TikTok.

If you want to respond to video, you can use a feature called Duet, and this places the original video and your video side by side. But, to my surprise, it places the original video on the right and the response video on the left.

TikTok was apparently launched in China before going international. Maybe to a Chinese audience, this layout is more natural?

Articles on product internationalization sometimes mention that sloppily translated Western ads tend to do poorly in the Far East—when on the ad pictures a man first grimaces with pain, then takes a pill, then smiles with a contented expression. From left to right.

I work on food automation. It is likely that, considering human population trajectories, urbanization, reductions in arable land, rising sea levels, pollution and ever-greater challenges to high density urban environments from public health that this field of technology will permanently change the manner through which food is distributed and prepared for a substantial percentage of humans in future.

My favourite piece of art is a large format German woodcut of a farmer who is seeding a field by hand-spreading seeds folded in to a fabric sling. He, the nominal subject stares beyond the viewer with a confidence. Yet for his absence of direct engagement we learn to look beyond him, to a couple working a dual-horse plow, and beyond them to a village clocktower. From the inscription we learn of the date, at the end of the industrial revolution, at which this was carved and printed.

I like to think the artist was asking a question: what will become of the 19th century way of life - soon to disappear - under industrialism? The elements: the clock, the animal labour, and the foreground human with such an objective character going about his work (yet really just helping nature!) all tend to this interpretation. Indeed, there is nothing else to look at.

It is not fitting then, that as we replace humans in not just the farming but the preparation of food through novel technologies of automation that we look back to the innocence documented of the time and take heart of the fact that we have stood at the precipice of change before and did not fall fallow.

As Nabokov said: The isms go, the ist dies, art remains.

Would you mind linking an image of the woodcut? I'd love to see it.

https://imgur.com/a/8XTUyBv

Hokusai is also the father of modern day comic books, and manga.

https://blog.britishmuseum.org/hokusai-the-father-of-manga/

A prolific artist.

I don't understand where "mystified" in the title is coming from. This is a great work of art but what is mysterious about it?

Lol came here to ask this. The mystery is why they are still trying to write exotic Japan articles. That said this is a fantastic print. I had a large poster of it on my dorm wall but realized its actually quite unsettling and not relaxing wall decor at all- you can almost feel that feeling of getting sucked down and about to be pummeled by a huge wave.

It’s from Japan

The most mysterious of countries

America: "Japanese culture is just so weird! ...Here are the top 9 weirdest Japan things!"

I think its become a meme at this point, perpetuated by blogs that lack original content.

Japan itself has a homegrown industry of claiming it is utterly different from all other nations. This has led Japanese academics to e.g. claim that the Japanese cannot eat imported rice because only local rice is compatible with their anatomy. Or another example (common through the 1970s, less found today with the larger amount of immigrant labour): foreigners should be taught only a simplified and artificial form of Japanese, because no way could foreign brains ever grasp the real Japanese language.

So, when foreigners speak of Japan as weird, this only plays into Japanese own attitude.

Yeah the weirdness of Japan thing is very much a meme sort of thing that I think can be pushed by folks on the inside, but the nature of Japanese society (not necessarily all individuals) still seems somewhat closed / walled off and that IMO is probably the origin / feeds / fed the meme.

Or, as Dan Carlin, the creator of the Hardcore History podcast says, "The Japanese are like everyone else, only more so."

https://www.dancarlin.com/hardcore-history-series/

As long as we’re talking about exceptionalism, worth noting that this is originally a quote about the Jews which Carlin adapted (Carlin himself is clear about this).

> Japan itself has a homegrown industry of claiming it is utterly different from all other nations.

Pretty much all countries have this sort of narrative about themselves, at least among each country's patriots.

The same kind of folks who didn’t/wouldn’t care to know a thing about anything outside of America before the “information” age now have the luxury of getting the most simplistic representation piped into their heads via clickbait and mass media.

Yeah, I feel like any of "fascinated", "intrigued", or "captivated" would have been better.

Perhaps the editor was using some poetic license; since "Mystified" sounds like mist, it could be a play on the spray coming from the wave.

That's probably being generous though.

> That Hokusai employed the hue as the principal actor in his oceanic drama suggests that he was depicting Japan on the cusp of change. As much as the wave portends instability and danger, it also suggests possibility and adventure.

Does the author have any real evidence to believe the wave was intended to be a metaphor of change coming to Japan? Or that the choice of blue pigment was anything more than using the best technology available at the time?

No mystery, it's just an example of really good poster art. I've always liked 'The Lucky Tea Kettle of Morin Temple'.

Now....Color Field artists and the fact that people pay the big bucks for some of them, that's the kind of thing that can mystify you.

If you have only seen color field paintings in books, seeing them in person at a museum might help resolve some of the mystery. They can have a powerful physical presence. Maybe still overpriced, but not worthless.

The better color field paintings strike me as good quality industrial graphics art, perfect for a textbook/album cover or a corporate HQ lobby. Time will tell on whether Rothko is a scam or has lasting value. I fully appreciate the self-belief and self-marketing that goes into this stuff, a form of visual John Cage.

My favorite ones, and I wish I could find an example as my Google-Fu is failing me, are the guys that simply paint a whole canvas a solid color. Basically metastasized paint chips.

I respect people who have differing opinions but standing in front of a Rothko close enough to have it fill my entire field of vision is still one of my favorite experiences with art.

Even in reproductions, I find his paintings to be evocative and emotive.

Ellsworth Kelly?

This is a great print and a great story, thanks for that :)

Link for those who are also curious like me: https://ccdl.claremont.edu/digital/collection/cyw/id/314/

I love the "Great Wave" and it reminds me of fractals: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractal

I think the painting has great similarities to fractals, before fractals were "discovered".

Another one of his works (Not save for work!) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dream_of_the_Fisherman%27s...

I knew I've seen this style before. The Great Wave has definitely been reproduced all over the place.

The most recent "reproduction" is the "Water Breathing" from Demon Slayer. Every water attack from the water-users is depicted with a "Great Wave-like" painting.

https://static3.cbrimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2...

What's interesting about Demon Slayer's artstyle is their ability to animate this style. Which is shown pretty well throughout the Demon Slayer's opening. It really looks great in motion.

https://youtu.be/jiJu4K2jems?t=59

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Glad to know the name of this classic woodblock painting that's inspired so many others.

I've seen original printings of this at the Chicago Art Museum. To be honest I think the concept of the great wave influences a great deal of Hayao Miyazaki's films when either water or a miasma is portrayed.

Discussion from a year ago:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22025618

I very much recommend this interactive piece from NYT (potential paywall) on another of Hokusai's prints: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/08/07/arts/design/h...

It gives an appreciation of the detail in some of these pieces as well as the medium's history and western consumption.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com