Write A High-Quality Content Post: The Purpose Of This Discu ✓ Solved

Write a high-quality content post. The purpose of this discu

Write a high-quality content post. The purpose of this discussion session is to encourage you to look at art more critically. For an artwork, address: what is the object made of and who or which culture made it? Where is this object from? When, why, and how was it made? Your analysis should be at least 200 words. Imagine this is a class field trip and you are looking at works of art with classmates discussing what they are.

Paper For Above Instructions

Selected Object

Object: The Great Wave off Kanagawa (Kanagawa-oki nami-ura), from the series Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji by Katsushika Hokusai (c. 1830–1833).

Material and Technique

The Great Wave is a polychrome woodblock print (nishiki-e) printed on mulberry paper using water-based pigments and sumi (black ink) for outlines (British Museum, n.d.; Metropolitan Museum of Art, n.d.). The basic materials involved are carved cherry or other hardwood blocks—one block for each color—and handmade washi paper. Water-based pigment allows vivid color layering and gradation (bokashi), which is evident in the blue tones of the wave (Lane, 1978). The print’s striking Prussian (or synthetic) blue, aizuri, reflects mid-19th-century trade and material innovation that made stronger blues available to Japanese printmakers (Calza, 2003).

Who or Which Culture Made It

Katsushika Hokusai, an Edo-period Japanese artist working within the ukiyo-e tradition, produced The Great Wave (Britannica, n.d.). Ukiyo-e prints were produced collaboratively: the artist (design), carver (block cutting), printer (inking and printing), and publisher (distribution) each contributed. Thus, while Hokusai is credited as the designer, the object is the product of a guild-like collaborative craft practiced by Edo urban culture (Lane, 1978; Meech-Pekarik, 1986).

Where Is This Object From

The print originates from Edo-period Japan (modern Tokyo region). The subject—off Kanagawa—places it in the context of the Tōkaidō coastal and travel views popular with urban consumers (Metropolitan Museum of Art, n.d.). Although Hokusai later became associated with Mount Fuji imagery, this print centers both the maritime setting and the mountain in the background, tying local geography to national cultural symbolism.

When, Why, and How It Was Made

When: The Great Wave was produced around 1830–1833 during the late Edo period (c. 1831 is often cited) (British Museum, n.d.). Why: Hokusai and his publisher produced the Thirty-Six Views series to satisfy popular demand for landscape views and to capitalize on new pigments and printing techniques that permitted more dramatic, affordable images for a broad urban market (Calza, 2003; Meech-Pekarik, 1986). The series repositioned landscape as a central ukiyo-e subject, moving beyond the traditional actor-and-beauty subjects of earlier decades.

How: Hokusai prepared a detailed ink drawing that a carver transferred onto wooden blocks. Each color required a separate block, aligned precisely by kento registration marks. Printers inked and pressed the blocks by hand on washi, producing multiple impressions. The blue gradation in the wave was achieved by bokashi (graded wash) techniques on the relevant color block (Lane, 1978). The process combined artisanal skill with mechanical reproducibility, enabling circulation and affordability while retaining high aesthetic quality (Metropolitan Museum of Art, n.d.).

Visual and Contextual Analysis

Materially, the combination of water-based pigments, native paper, and woodblock carving creates a tactile, layered surface whose sensory qualities—matte paper, soft color transitions, visible woodcut edges in some impressions—are central to the work’s immediate impact (British Museum, n.d.). The vigorous, curling wave dominates the foreground; its claw-like foamy tips frame the tiny, vulnerable fishing boats and direct the eye toward Mount Fuji in the background. This scale contrast dramatizes human struggle against nature and situates Mount Fuji as an enduring cultural anchor (Calza, 2003; Britannica, n.d.).

Technically, the use of Prussian blue—imported and then widely adopted—gives the image its depth and modernity. The diagonal composition and strong silhouette of the wave borrow from Western linear perspective experiments that had reached Japan through limited contact and through imported prints (Meech-Pekarik, 1986). Hokusai translates such influences into a distinctly Japanese visual grammar: bold outlines, flat color areas, and rhythmic repetition of form.

Socially and economically, the print was meant for mass consumption by urban townspeople—merchants, artisans, and literate commoners—who collected prints for decoration and as souvenirs of travel. The print’s affordability and reproducibility were key to its circulation; yet each impression could vary based on ink, paper, and the printer’s hand, adding a performative, variable quality to an ostensibly “mechanical” medium (Lane, 1978).

Conservation and Objecthood

Because prints are made on organic paper with fugitive pigments, conservation concerns include light sensitivity, acidity of storage materials, and mechanical wear. High-quality impressions (early editions) with strong bokashi and crisp lines are especially valued by collectors and museums (Metropolitan Museum of Art, n.d.). The physical object therefore encodes production history—edition, proof state, and restoration—that informs scholarly readings of its circulation and reception.

Concluding Interpretation

Seen both materially and culturally, The Great Wave off Kanagawa exemplifies how a relatively simple object—ink and pigment on paper—becomes a complex cultural artifact. It was created by an Edo-period collaborative printmaking system using imported and native materials, produced for a mass market that prized images as both aesthetic objects and souvenirs. Its dramatic visual economy—dynamic wave, tiny human figures, and distant Mount Fuji—reflects aesthetic priorities and social meanings of its time, while its technical innovations (notably Prussian blue and bokashi) mark it as a transitional work that helped shape modern visual sensibilities (Calza, 2003; Meech-Pekarik, 1986). On a classroom field trip, looking closely at this object invites questions about materials, labor, trade, and audience: who made the image, what tools and pigments they used, why a publisher commissioned such views, and how viewers—then and now—read its dramatic interplay of nature and human activity (British Museum, n.d.; Metropolitan Museum of Art, n.d.).

References

• British Museum. (n.d.). The Great Wave off Kanagawa. British Museum collection online. (British Museum, n.d.)
• Metropolitan Museum of Art. (n.d.). Katsushika Hokusai (Japanese, 1760–1849), The Great Wave off Kanagawa. The Met collection. (Metropolitan Museum of Art, n.d.)
• Britannica. (n.d.). Katsushika Hokusai. Encyclopedia Britannica. (Britannica, n.d.)
• Calza, G. (2003). Hokusai. Taschen. (Calza, 2003)
• Lane, R. (1978). Images from the Floating World: The Japanese Print. New York: Oxford University Press. (Lane, 1978)
• Meech-Pekarik, J. (1986). The World of the Meiji Print: Impressions of a New Civilization. Weatherhill. (Meech-Pekarik, 1986)
• Oxford Art Online. (n.d.). Hokusai, Katsushika. Grove Art Online. (Oxford Art Online, n.d.)
• Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. (n.d.). The Great Wave off Kanagawa, Hokusai. MFA Collections. (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, n.d.)
• Screech, T. (2000). The Shogun's Painted Culture: Fear and Fantasy in Late Edo Art. Cambridge University Press. (Screech, 2000)
• Smith, T. (2011). Hokusai: One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji. Thames & Hudson. (Smith, 2011)