Why This Iconic Artwork is Still Powerful 200 Years Later

The terrifying beauty of Hokusai’s “Great Wave off Kanagawa”

Great Wave off Kanagawa (c.1830) by Katsushika Hokusai. Woodblock print. Image source

Few artworks in history have achieved the celebrated status of this image.

I can’t remember exactly when I first saw The Great Wave off Kanagawa — only that there was something magnetic about it.

After years of returning to this image, I’ve come to believe that it holds us in its grip because it quietly poses a question — not about history or technique, but about our perception.

So what do we see here? Is it depiction of nature’s formidable energy as a fearsome wave rises and crashes? Or is it a picture of graceful beauty, where the balanced forms of the ocean and distant mountain create a kind of geometric harmony?

For me, the eloquence of this famous Japanese print is in the tension created by these two possibilities, for the work seems to contain both immense ferocity and elegant flow. No artwork has so vividly captured nature’s dual essence — its fury and its grace — whilst holding them in such faultless balance.

So what lies behind its power? And how was it achieved?

The artist

The image was made by the Japanese printmaker Katsushika Hokusai, sometime around…