Under the Wave off Kanagawa (Kanagawa oki nami ura), also known as The Great Wave, from the series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku sanjūrokkei)

Hokusai was around seventy years old when he designed this print. He was living in Edo (now Tokyo) and had just begun the series that would carry his name around the world: Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji. The composition is horizontal, roughly 10 by 15 inches. A massive wave occupies the left two-thirds of the image, its crest curling into claw-like fingers of foam that seem to reach for the sky. Behind it, Mount Fuji sits small and white in the distance, almost swallowed by the wave's silhouette. Three long boats ride the swell, their crews hunched low against the water. The palette is built on Prussian blue, a synthetic pigment newly imported from Europe, set against the cream of the paper. Hokusai had been making prints for decades by 1830, but his most recognized work came late in life. He called himself "Old Man Mad about Painting" and reportedly rose at dawn each day to draw. The Thirty-six Views series was published by Nishimuraya Yohachi and sold well enough that ten additional designs were added to the original thirty-six. Ukiyo-e, "pictures of the floating world," was the dominant print tradition of Edo-period Japan. Most ukiyo-e depicted kabuki actors and courtesans. Hokusai's landscape series helped shift the genre toward scenic views, a direction Hiroshige would continue in the following decades. The Prussian blue in this print was a recent import, and Hokusai was among the first Japanese printmakers to use it so boldly. Woodblock print, ink and color on paper, 25.7 by 37.9 centimeters. The image was carved into cherry wood blocks, one for each color, and printed by pressing dampened paper against the inked block. The Prussian blue gives the wave its depth and coldness. The horizontal format and strong blue palette make this print work well in a wide space: above a bed, a sofa, or along a hallway. It pairs well with white walls and blue or grey accents. The 18x24 framed version in a black frame is the most common choice for living rooms. The Met's impression entered the collection in 1929 through the Havemeyer bequest. This is a public domain artwork (CC0), from The Metropolitan Museum of Art. We print it on archival matte paper at sizes from 8x10 to 24x36 inches, framed or unframed. The image is printed at full resolution with no cropping.