[HN Gopher] Things to know about the Great Wave
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Things to know about the Great Wave
Author : msephton
Score : 265 points
Date : 2024-09-07 15:31 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.artic.edu)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.artic.edu)
| kaycebasques wrote:
| Wow! Never thought about it like this before:
|
| > 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...
| AnonHP wrote:
| Historical Japanese text, written vertically, is read top to
| bottom and right to left (like in those prints). On the other
| hand, more modern text (including what's more common now) is
| read left to right when written horizontally. There are some
| more variations on directionality.
|
| Nevertheless, the picture does look and convey a different
| impression when flipped.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| This is true of documents, text messages, social media etc.,
| but most books, magazines and other printed matter are still
| done vertically and R-L.
| cubefox wrote:
| Wow, I didn't know that! I thought vertical text was a
| thing of the past. Interesting.
| wccrawford wrote:
| I'm probably lower-intermediate at Japanese, so take this
| with a grain of salt.
|
| 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.
| aikinai wrote:
| I'm not native, but have read and spoken Japanese
| fluently for almost twenty years. I still can't get used
| to and hate vertical text.
|
| 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.
| wccrawford wrote:
| Ah, yeah, my main motivation is reading light novels, and
| I've actually read a few really easy ones. I've also read
| manga, but it's hard to find any that I like that are
| also at my level.
|
| I'm not sure how I'd feel if the vast majority of my
| usage had been horizontal instead.
| roenxi wrote:
| A typical eye is stronger at up-down motion and weaker at
| left-right motion. That comes up sometimes when adding
| rules (guidelines) to tables.
| KPGv2 wrote:
| I own a bunch of novels in Japanese, and every single one
| is vertically-written. Same with all the comic books I
| own. I think maybe a couple children's manga I had years
| ago were horizontally-written, but we're talking
| something I haven't laid eyes on in decades, so I might
| be mis-remembering.
| n_plus_1_acc wrote:
| Mangas often mix and match, depenfong on what best fits
| the image.
| cubefox wrote:
| If it's not done a lot on the web, I blame CSS. With
| horizontal text you scroll the page from top to bottom,
| with vertical text from right to left. Most HTML/CSS
| seems to be optimized for the former. E.g. vertical
| percentage margins don't work like horizontal ones, and
| CSS3 columns have similar issues.
| pm215 wrote:
| If you want to try a horizontal text layout novel for
| some reason, "Si Xiao Shuo --from left to right" is one.
| It's a deliberate choice because it's a semi
| autobiographical novel about the author's life as a
| bilingual Japanese and English speaker growing up in the
| US. The text is peppered with English words and fragments
| of dialogue to try to convey some of the bilingual
| experience.
|
| That is the only one I've encountered though.
| sdrothrock wrote:
| Novels are often written vertically as well, so it's
| fairly common still.
| lidavidm wrote:
| Only because Western-centric systems don't handle non-LTR
| text properly.
|
| 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.
| bdowling wrote:
| It's rare in modern times, but sometimes you may encounter a
| sign board written horizontally right-to-left, as in this
| sign above the front entrance to the Nippon Budokan:
|
| https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nippon_Budokan_-_2.
| ..
| yumraj wrote:
| How does one know whether to read left to right or right to
| left? Or is it clear from the text?
| rococode wrote:
| It's usually clear from context.
|
| That sign in particular says "Martial Arts Hall"
| ("budokan" / Wu Dao Guan ) 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.
| aikinai wrote:
| txetnoC
| skhr0680 wrote:
| Horizontal right-to-left was common historically
| kinj28 wrote:
| I wonder the logic and even history of why right to left came
| into being. Is there any benefit in choosing a directionality
| of one vs another.
|
| 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?
| blululu wrote:
| It's kinda of arbitrary. For ink:graphite writing top to
| bottom and right to left has the advantage of not smudging
| for right handers. For more durable media
| (carving/etching/chiseling) I think it is more arbitrary.
| mbg721 wrote:
| Boustrophedon (alternating left-to-right and right-to-left)
| was used sometimes in ancient Greek, so that your eyes
| didn't have to jump to the beginning of the next line.
| wisty wrote:
| Even manga translated into English is right-to-left with the
| first page (in English) scolding you for opening the book at
| the back, and telling you how to follow the text.
|
| 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).
| ginko wrote:
| I think that's just the natural direction to draw a wave as a
| right handed person.
| jasonjamerson wrote:
| Interesting. It's a woodblock print, so I think it would have
| been created backwards from the final product?
| pm215 wrote:
| The description of the Japanese woodblock printing process
| in https://education.asianart.org/resources/the-ukiyo-e-
| woodblo... says that the artist's initial drawing is pasted
| face down on the woodblock, which is then carved to match
| it. So (unless I've got myself confused) the final print
| will be the same way round as the artist's drawing. This
| also means that text in the image (like the title and the
| artist's signature) come out the right way round.
| litenboll wrote:
| I feel really dumb, but I have never even noticed the boats. In
| the reversed I see them very clearly, but in the original the
| wave is completely dominating the view (now I see the boats of
| course, but my focus is completely on the wave by default).
| shepherdjerred wrote:
| Me too! I'd only ever noticed the waves
| plasma_beam wrote:
| Even dumber, I never noticed Mt. Fuji was in the pic, focus
| was truly on the wave.
| msephton wrote:
| In some prints Fuji is coloured to look like a small wave
| (my personal preference) but in later prints is coloured
| differently to stand out.
| twelvechairs wrote:
| Worth noting the color of the boats varies from white to
| yellow to dark brown in the various prints, so sometimes they
| appear far more obviously than others.
| albert_e wrote:
| I am in the same ..err ...boat.
|
| I am now convinced there is a strong element of left-to-right
| versus right-to-left in the way we process images.
|
| Fascinating!
| edanm wrote:
| This happened to me too! I'm not sure if it's the left-to-
| right thing though, that sounds a bit unlikely to me.
| Specifically that it's tied to the language we use. (For the
| record I probably default to reading left-to-right, though I
| also read and write in Hebrew which is RTL.)
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| My eyes first see the large wave in both photos.
| megatron2009 wrote:
| I don't feel any difference in both the images.
| bloopernova wrote:
| I have several versions of this, I just enjoy looking at them. I
| have a desk mat, Lego set, and my favourite:
|
| https://shop.kozyndan.com/products/uprisings-poster
|
| Would the original be considered impressionist?
| benkuykendall wrote:
| No. Hokusai pre-dated Impressionism by a couple of decades, but
| his work was known in Paris and almost certainly influenced the
| movement. Also worth noting this particular work's influence on
| Impressionist music: see the cover of Debussy's La Mer.
| bloopernova wrote:
| Thank you for a great answer :)
| spondylosaurus wrote:
| The Lego set is gorgeous. I was impressed that the finished
| design has built-in hardware in case you want to hang it on a
| wall!
| parpfish wrote:
| I've been seeing this print my entire life, but last year was the
| first time I realized that there were boats and Mount Fuji. I was
| always so captivated by the claws on the wave that i never looked
| away from them
| Loughla wrote:
| And here I am never even noticing the claws.
| adrianN wrote:
| There is a very good multi part video about creating a facsimile
| of the print on YouTube https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jAhiMCSvtCc
| koffiedrinker wrote:
| I own his version of the Great Wave print, it's fabulous. I
| also recommend watching the playlist on YouTube to get a better
| understanding of how these prints are made as the article
| linked does not really explain or show you anything about the
| print making itself.
| adamgordonbell wrote:
| I first encountered it in a class where we looked at the whole
| series. It gives this sense of Japan being very diverse of
| setting, but always in the shadows of Fuji.
|
| 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.
| norir wrote:
| It is really awe inspiring to be in the presence of a great
| mountain like that. I was once driving up to Bend, Oregon
| (where I'd never been) at night with a friend and didn't notice
| Mt. Shasta on the horizon as we approached. At some point I
| looked over to my right and it was looming directly above us.
| It was almost scary. I had a visceral reaction to its presence.
| Not dissimilar to the experience of seeing the grand canyon for
| the first time in person.
| rachofsunshine wrote:
| Posters who have been to Seattle on a sunny day in summer may
| have a point of reference.
|
| 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.
| wslh wrote:
| True, Mount Aconcagua (~23,000 feet) is way taller, but it
| doesn't feel as dramatic as Fuji or Rainier because it's
| surrounded by other big peaks in the Andes. Kilimanjaro could
| be another one to compare since it's tall and stands out on
| its own like Fuji and Rainier, but there's something about
| Fuji's perfect symmetry that really sets it apart. If you're
| looking for another mountain with that kind of shape, check
| out Mount Mayon, it's smaller, but the cone is almost
| perfect.
| canpan wrote:
| You can see Mount Fuji from ridiculous far away. It is a real
| "lone mountain". While there are higher mountains in the Swiss
| alps, they are in between other mountains.
|
| Map from where Fuji can be seen (Japanese)
| https://info.jmc.or.jp/fujisankoko/
| xxr wrote:
| This is another great introduction to the piece that provides an
| economic background to the subject: https://youtu.be/hGxIS6Vj0cM.
| In a way it's similar to a lot of the WPA posters in the US or
| socialist realist labor posters from the USSR.
| bazzargh wrote:
| My own toots-worth of code version for the bbcmicrobot
| https://mastodon.me.uk/@bbcmicrobot/111846600975531195
|
| 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.
| danielvaughn wrote:
| I've always loved this piece of art, and other similar works. One
| of my favorite contemporary Japanese artists borrows from that
| tradition, and I never get a chance to plug her work so I'll link
| to it here. Her name is Asuka Ohsawa:
| https://www.asukaohsawa.com/drawings-2#/archive/
| sieste wrote:
| I love this style. You say "one of my favourite", can you
| recommend more artists in that genre?
| danielvaughn wrote:
| Her exact style is fairly unique, which is why I'm such a
| fan. But another great example is Hisashi Tenmyouya:
|
| http://tenmyouya.com
|
| 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/
| morbicer wrote:
| My first association is Jed Henry's fun postmodern take
|
| https://www.outregallery.com/collections/jed-henry
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/i4ny20/jed_henrys_a...
| teo_zero wrote:
| > If not the most famous artwork in the world
|
| 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...
| spaceman_2020 wrote:
| Its certainly one of the most influential. The style still
| echoes in modern anime Japanese animation.
| gus_massa wrote:
| In https://www.google.com/search?q=famous+artwork I got it at
| the 26th position.
|
| The search gives a few lists, but all of them feel western-
| biased.
| teractiveodular wrote:
| The results are almost all ranking paintings, and the Great
| Wave is not a painting.
| msephton wrote:
| Exactly this.
| teo_zero wrote:
| The parent post didn't say it's not present. In fact it's
| at the 26th place. So the ranking does not exclude non-
| paintings.
| zwayhowder wrote:
| One thing that I fully internalised only recently - despite
| learning Asian languages for literally decades. The things
| western people take for granted as ubiquitous in our culture
| are often unknown to Asian cultures.
|
| 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...
| seszett wrote:
| > _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._
|
| 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.
| KPGv2 wrote:
| > She knew the Backstreet Boys & One Direction, but not Take
| That nor East 17
|
| 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"
| tptacek wrote:
| Well, both the Met and the Art Institute of Chicago disagree
| with you on that. One thing that'll throw you off, mentioned in
| the article: the Wave isn't a painting, and if you look for
| artwork rankings (it's the Internet, of course these exist)
| they tend to rank paintings.
|
| 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.
| KPGv2 wrote:
| > The Waves at the Art Institute aren't their most iconic,
| popular pieces; that honor probably goes to Seurat's Sunday
| Afternoon.
|
| 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.
| tptacek wrote:
| Right, the question here is whether the Wave itself is
| among the world's most famous works of art; the answer
| seems pretty clearly to be "yes". I threw the Seurat thing
| in as sort of a preemptive rebuttal to the idea that the
| Art Institute would hype up the Waves just because it has
| them. :)
| wglb wrote:
| According to the article:
|
| > The Art Institute is fortunate to have three prints of
| The Great Wave, all original editions.
| timthorn wrote:
| Not that a single data point is particularly useful, but I'd
| never come across it before reading the article.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| I agree, reading the subject article is the first time I've
| ever seen it that I can remember.
| msephton wrote:
| I think the Great Wave would be high on the most recognisable
| chart.
| smitty1e wrote:
| My claim to fame in life is having hauled a highland bagpipe up
| Mt. Fuji and blown "Amazing Grace" at the summit.
|
| Which is a terrible idea. The air pressure at that altitude does
| not support driving four reeds, especially through a splitting
| headache.
| msephton wrote:
| Well done, though!
| perihelions wrote:
| - _" Japanese woodblock prints are particularly affected by
| exposure to light that can fade their colors and damage the paper
| they're printed on. "It's always a balancing act between wanting
| to show works like The Great Wave so that our visitors have a
| chance to experience them and preserving these works for the
| future," Katz says. "We work closely with our conservators to set
| the parameters for the display of works on paper.""_
|
| 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.
| kragen wrote:
| they can be, especially textile dyes, but in this case i think
| it's more the paper and binders that are damaged. prussian blue
| is quite light-stable despite containing iron ions, and there
| are plenty of black and white pigments that are light-stable
| over even geological time
| radpanda wrote:
| I'd imagine somewhere there's an engineer-artist putting such a
| print in a brightly lit locked box, which is programmed not to
| open until the interior light has shined long enough to
| eradicate the image on the print. (No idea if we have circuitry
| and LEDs that last long enough to make such a thing feasible).
| Tepix wrote:
| Use thermopaper. Problem solved
| layer8 wrote:
| That's how food works.
| layer8 wrote:
| Another thing to know is that the prints aren't all the same:
| https://www.britishmuseum.org/blog/great-wave-spot-differenc...
|
| Also, here's a nice Lego version:
| https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2020/12/jumpei-mitsui-great-w...
| msephton wrote:
| This is mentioned in the article. Art Institute of Chicago have
| 3 prints and show them next to each other so we can see the
| differences.
| somishere wrote:
| I remember reading that many of the prints attributed to Hokusai
| are likely imitations of what was a fairly well known style at
| the time. Not sure how much truth there is to it? Can't find
| anything saying as much in a quick google.
|
| 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!).
| fuzzythinker wrote:
| "All I have done before the age of 70 is not worth bothering
| with" - Katsushika Hokusai
|
| (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.
| hiisukun wrote:
| One thing that strikes me about this work, and Hokusai's other
| very popular wood block prints, is that he was a total
| perfectionist.
|
| 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.
| msephton wrote:
| Hokusai only drew the original sketch as a watercolour. A team
| of other people did the carving, colouring, printing all
| overseen by the publisher.
| NaOH wrote:
| The site Great Wave Today maintains a list of where it is on
| display: https://greatwavetoday.com
| msephton wrote:
| Just in case people aren't aware the article is to promote that
| the Art Institute of Chicago have one of their three prints of
| The Great Wave on view for the first time in 5 years. (I suspect
| they'll rotate through all 3 prints over the next few months to
| minimise how much each one is in light).
| dekhn wrote:
| I love the Great Wave and have spent a lot of time trying to get
| my laser engraver to make a good image of it. The entire series
| is excellent.
|
| 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...
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(page generated 2024-09-08 23:01 UTC)