John LewisKatsushika Hokusai - The Great Wave off Kanagawa, Grey Painted Ash Framed Print

A reproduction of probably the best-known woodblock print by Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849). A snow-capped Mount Fuji appears in the background.

In line with our timber policy, the wood frame is from sustainably managed sources.

Born in 1760, Edo (modern-day Tokyo) to a family of artisans, Hokusai began painting at the age of six. Despite constant challenges in his career (he changed his name more than 20 times and changed home more than 90 times), Hokusai was incredibly prolific and the variety of works he produced is astonishing (Manga, prints, paintings, drawings). Among them, The Big Wave, Red Fuji and The Great Wave off Kanagawa are masterpieces he created in his 70s and which established him as the most celebrated Japanese artist in the History of Art.

These woodcut prints, also called ukiyo-e or ‘images of the floating world’, are remarkable for their bold composition, vivid Prussian blue pigments and arresting depiction of Mount Fuji. Here, Hokusai created a new visual grammar comprised of an economy of line and radical composition. For instance, in Red Fuji – which refers to the time in autumn when the sun hits the mountain - the artist chose to place Mount Fuji off-centred, on the right, in order to introduce a dynamic diagonal line across the print. Similarly, in The Great Wave, Hokusai disguised the mount Fuji as a wave, thus offering a depiction of landscape infused with life.

The obsession that Mount Fuji became for the Japanese artist shaped a new type of practice for him, where the same subject was explored from various angles and in different situations (Monet will later follow in Hokusai’s footsteps by adopting this approach). These choices reflect Hokusai’s creativity and ambition to not only set up, but also succeed, an artistic challenge. It is the technical prowess and enduring modernity of the work, which fascinated and transformed the work of Impressionist artists such as Monet, Degas, and Manet when his work was feted in Paris in the late 1860s. Although dating back to the 18th century, the legacy of Hokusai keeps inspiring artists of all eras and all disciplines: from the painting of Van Gogh, the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright, to today’s street art and contemporary illustration.