Artwork Information
Sotto l'onda al largo di Kanagawa
Katsushika Hokusai
1830[-]33
![Sotto l'onda al largo di Kanagawa by Katsushika Hokusai, 1830[-]33](https://www.thequadro.com/api/storage/artworks/thumb/l/katsushika-hokusai/katsushika-hokusai_thirty-six-views-of-mount-fuji_under-the-wave-off-kanagawa_7b07864e)
Il capolavoro di Hokusai cattura un momento terribilmente bello in cui la natura riduce l'umanità a proporzioni minuscole. Un'enorme ondata a forma di artiglio domina la scena, minacciando di schiacciare tre fragili barche da pesca, mentre il piccolo Monte Fuji, innevato, siede tranquillamente sullo sfondo, ignorando completamente il caos. Creata intorno al 1831 come parte della serie «Trentasei vedute del Monte Fuji», questa stampa divenne immediatamente una sensazione in Giappone e in seguito influenzò i pittori impressionisti in Europa. Il sorprendente blu deriva dal «blu di Prussia», un pigmento sintetico che all'epoca era un'importazione di tendenza dall'Europa.
- Technique
- Woodblock print (Ukiyo-e)
- Material
- Ink and color on paper
Interpretation Content
On the anniversary of Katsushika Hokusai's death (October 10), we return to "Under the Wave off Kanagawa" in remembrance. Created around 1831 as part of the series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, the print belongs to the final and most brilliant phase of Hokusai's career. Then in his seventies and calling himself "the old man mad about painting," he used the woodblock print — a popular commercial medium — to probe the relationship between nature and humankind.
In the image, a towering wave curls into claws above three fast boats carrying fresh fish; the crews crouch low in the troughs, tiny and vulnerable. Far in the distance, the snow-capped summit of Mount Fuji sits small and perfectly still, setting up a stark opposition between movement and stillness, violence and eternity. The deep blue is Prussian blue, a synthetic pigment newly imported from Europe at the time, and it gives the sea its extraordinary tension.
The series was first published with thirty-six views and later expanded by ten, making forty-six prints in all. Taking Mount Fuji as its axis, it records the seasons, the weather and every variety of human life. This print is the most celebrated of them all, transforming ukiyo-e from an urban commodity into a classic of world art.
Its afterlife is immense: it inspired Van Gogh, Monet and other Impressionist and Post-Impressionist painters, and prompted Debussy's La Mer. Its composition and visual language have seeped into modern design, cinema, animation and global popular culture, making it an enduring emblem of Japanese art.