The Great Wave off Kanagawa

This piece is part of the series Thirty-six views of Mount Fuji published in 1830 in Japan, following the Japanese style of ukiyo-e woodcut and with a particular chromatic range of blues that Hokusai achieved through a complex process of impression.

The wave-monster with terrible claws about to eat the small fishing boats, perfectly framed in the golden section, symbolizes the irrepressible force of nature, although there are other interpretations that suggest a meaning about the foreign invasion in Japanese lands.

With up to 5,000 copies of the print being distributed, it became so well known that today has inspired hundreds of works of contemporary art, it appears in Minecraft, on a mural on buildings in Moscow, an environmental installation in Florida, advertising references and in many brands.

The painting can be seen among other places at the MET Museum in New York, the British Museum in London, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the National Museum of Art of Catalonia in Barcelona, since about 5,000 copies were originally recorded.