There are some works of art that even the most uncultured philistines of today’s culture can recognize. Van Gogh’s “Starry Night,” Munch’s “The Scream,” and of course, da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa.” And on that Mount Rushmore of historic, iconic artistic monoliths, there’s also “The Great Wave off Kanagawa” by Japanese printmaker, Katsushika Hokusai.
It shows towering waves, wreaking havoc, consuming boats around it, while the peaceful, snowcapped peak of Mount Fuji burrows in the background.
The work is iconic, imprinted in the minds of all, with an enduring legacy since its creation in 1831. But the image has been misconstrued, over the years, as to what it actually depicts. Many believe that it shows an artistic rendition of a tsunami that struck Japan sometime in the past. But it turns out that’s not the case. Below, check out the drafts of the time-honored work, which Hokusai created before settling on the final version, and the real history of what it shows.
As shown above, Hokusai spent a lifetime on the work – recreating the image until he was finally satisfied with the woodblock print until he settled on the “final” version at the age of 72.
But what was it actually showing?
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In a study published in the Royal Society Publishingthe authors wrote:
“The print is today often reproduced as the artistic depiction of a tsunami. Did Hokusai really have a tsunami in mind when he composed this work? We examine that hypothesis together with the alternatives, by discussing the image itself and the circumstances surrounding its composition, and by evaluating the wave in terms of the fluid dynamics of breaking waves and in particular of the species termed plunging breakers, of which The great wave is a member, and conclude that it is more probable that Hokusai intended to depict an exceptionally large storm wave. There is a great deal of scientific interest at present in such abnormally high waves, which are often termed freak or rogue waves.”
So, while rogue waves are a fairly new phenomenon in scientific parlance, with the first officially detected phenomenon coming in 1995 off the coast of Norway with the Draupner Wave, it appears that these abnormal, large waves were happening – and documented, at least artistically – long before. And still, nearly 200 years later since Hokusai’s print, scientists are still attempting to figure out how these anomalous, massive waves work.
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