> Because Japanese text is read from right to left, the earliest viewers of The Great Wave would have likely read the print that way too, first encountering the boaters and then meeting the great claw of water about to swallow them. So instead of riding along with the gargantuan wave as you might in a left-to-right reading, they would face right into the massive wall of ocean.
Reversed image from the article to demonstrate: https://artic-web.imgix.net/5c05c38c-1c80-446f-a3db-4b95b42e...
I am now convinced there is a strong element of left-to-right versus right-to-left in the way we process images.
Fascinating!
Nevertheless, the picture does look and convey a different impression when flipped.
https://atadistance.net/2019/10/20/japanese-text-layout-for-...
> Baseline font metrics will never deliver great CJK typography because there are too many limitations. > > This is why InDesign J implements virtual body metrics based on Adobe proprietary table information for true high-end Japanese layout. There is no virtual body standard digital font metric standard so everybody implements the missing stuff on the fly and everybody does it different. Unfortunately the irony of it all is that Adobe played a huge role in how these limitations played out in the evolution of digital fonts, desktop publishing (DTP) and the situation we have today.
I have a Kobo reader which supports both ePub 2 and ePub 3, and IIRC you need ePub 3 in order to get proper RTL/top-to-bottom text and Japanese typesetting, as well as proper comics support (if you buy an ePub 3 manga, it'll properly flip the page turn direction and the progress bar; a CBZ or other format won't). But most other readers I run into don't understand ePub 3 properly.
I find that reading vertical text feels better, even though I first learned to read horizontal text. I don't know if this is all in my mind, or it really does have some appeal to it, though.
Maybe it’s because 99% of my Japanese context is business-related or on devices (computer, phone) and I don’t read novels, manga, etc.
I'm not sure how I'd feel if the vast majority of my usage had been horizontal instead.
That is the only one I've encountered though.
https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nippon_Budokan_-_2...
That sign in particular says "Martial Arts Hall" ("budokan" / 武道館) from right to left.
Imagine an alternate universe where English could also be read left-to-right or right-to-left. If you were to see a sign saying "Hall Arts Martial", you'd immediately know the right way to read it.
One thing that comes to my mind- book binding is done on the left edge of the book/news paper. So if folds are created you would go read left paper first and then to the right. Now if you are parsing left to right at higher level- At lower level wouldn’t it become consistency of UX to offer left to right reading?
Also fans of some manga (especially One Piece?) will talk about how the comics will make use of this sense of right to left, with subtle timing, action, or causality often being from right to left (if Star Wars was a manga, Han would shoot from the right of the frame).
Also, here’s a nice Lego version: https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2020/12/jumpei-mitsui-great-w...
https://www.outregallery.com/collections/jed-henry
https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/i4ny20/jed_henrys_a...
If the strong graphic lines are what appeal to you, I could also recommend Takashi Murakami. He’s somewhat polar opposite of the previous two, but I love his work as well: https://www.takaoka-art.com/collections/takashi-murakami
And finally, my favorite contemporary artist period is named James Jean, a Taiwanese artist: http://www.jamesjean.com/
(He began the series when he was 70 years old)
This quote and fact alone gave me hope. Hope I can remember it when the time comes.
He would get things juuuust right, with the colour and the production process, with each copy made, then score/scratch the original so further prints could not be made to a different fashion/standard.
For him to be alive and see bright and garish "Great wave" socks, jumpers, room rugs, key rings and the like would probably cause him such a great conniption he'd drop right back dead again.
But such is the life of popular art work -- it survives its creator and lives by new rules over time.
Mandelbrot wrote about the Great Wave having fractal like properties (eg here in an interview https://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/obrist10/obrist10_index.htm...) but I hadn't seen an attempt to use a fractal to draw it; good subjects for the bbcmicrobot use repetition to help fit the code in so it suggested itself.
Which is a terrible idea. The air pressure at that altitude does not support driving four reeds, especially through a splitting headache.
https://shop.kozyndan.com/products/uprisings-poster
Would the original be considered impressionist?
I've not been to Japan, and not sure of the accuracy of the size of Fuji but it does make it feel like wherever you are, Fuji is there watching.
Mount Rainier, at a bit over 14,000 feet, is just a bit taller than Mt. Fuji (a bit over 12,000), and both are similarly-shaped stratovolcanoes. Kanagawa Prefecture (the "Kanagawa" in the print's name) is part of the greater Tokyo area, so a wave "off Kanagawa" is either in Tokyo Bay or in the Pacific just outside of it. Wikipedia's analysis suggests the perspective is from southern Tokyo Bay, around 60 miles from the peak of Mount Fuji. And downtown Seattle is, as it happens, about 60 miles from the peak of Mount Rainier.
So the view of Rainier from Seattle is quite similar to the view from of Fuji in the print. The view from Tokyo proper would place Fuji slightly smaller than Rainier, since Tokyo is slightly more distant from Fuji than Seattle is from Rainier, and since Fuji is the slightly smaller of the two mountains.
Map from where Fuji can be seen (Japanese) https://info.jmc.or.jp/fujisankoko/
If you enjoy his work, I highly recommend checking out some of this others, such as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dream_of_the_Fisherman%27s...
As an aside, I have a large print of the great wave by my front door. It's such a powerful image. I was also surprised how easy it is to find quality, quite old woodblock prints in Japan at very reasonable prices (tho not by masters!).
Imagine if there were quantum-mechanical minds that were able to appreciate quantum-mechanical art, but, the very act of contemplating, comprehending the art irreversibly degraded it. What a beautifully sad thought! A stark finiteness, like NFT's for conscious experiences.
Dyes are destroyed by the very light that illuminates them to visibility. Observation is destructive.
Wait, what?? Am I the only one who thinks this sentence is off by an order of magnitude? I'd bet that the Great Wave is not even one of the 10 most famous. Unfortunately I have no evidence to support my statement...
As an example recently talking to a Japanese friend who is the same age as me we realised she had seen less than 10% of the movies that "everyone born in the early 80's has seen". She didn't know who OJ Simpson was, nor is she familiar with Henry VIII and his 6 wives. She knew the Backstreet Boys & One Direction, but not Take That nor East 17.
Traveling in China a few years ago I was surprised to see many Hokusai images used on clothing and shop decorations.
The Mona Lisa might be the western world's most famous artwork, but you rarely see it on a T-shirt unless you're meeting a tourist near the Louvre. I suspect that if both were in still trademarked that Hokusai would be making orders of magnitude more on royalties than Da Vinci...
Not even Americans are likely to know who Take That and East 17 are. I'm a middle-aged American, university educated, have even lived abroad, and most in my circle of equally educated and well-traveled friends would consider particularly hip to cultural trends of the late 20th century.
I've literally never even heard of East 17, and I am vaguely aware of Take That being a band, but if you hadn't included them in the same sentence as BSB and 1D (whose members I cannot name except for Zane and Harry, plus there's an Irish guy??), I wouldn't have even clocked "oh yeah, that's a band I've heard mentioned a couple times in my life"
Well, I'm French and it's the same for me. I think what Americans (and the British? I know Henry VIII is a king if England, even if I have no idea how many wives he could have had) greatly overestimate how shared their culture is in the western world.
Though living in Belgium I've noticed the Flemish are much more aware of such American things than we are, so maybe it's just the French who aren't well integrated into the "global western" culture.
The Waves at the Art Institute aren't their most iconic, popular pieces; that honor probably goes to Seurat's Sunday Afternoon.
I should get back over there soon. It's been forever.
Well, there's only one Sunday Afternoon, but if you have a few thousand dollars, you, too, can own an original Waves, since there's no such thing as "the" original when you're talking about collecting prints.
Much like there isn't a "one" Warhol soup can painting. These artists' works were infinitely replicable even in their own day. That's why in the Japanese art world, prints produced in the artist's lifetime are all considered original because they would've all been made by the same hand, or an assistant's.
EDIT: After googling, it appears that it's estimated 8,000 copies of the Great Wave were made by Hokusai, but that few of them still exist. That's surprising to me, honestly. One recently sold for $2.7 million, apparently, and I couldn't believe that search result. My mistake!
EDIT 2: That being said, the British Museum alone owns three original Great Wave copies.
> The Art Institute is fortunate to have three prints of The Great Wave, all original editions.
The search gives a few lists, but all of them feel western-biased.
