[HN Gopher] Where can I see Hokusai's Great Wave today?
___________________________________________________________________
Where can I see Hokusai's Great Wave today?
Author : colinprince
Score : 125 points
Date : 2025-07-09 03:34 UTC (19 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (greatwavetoday.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (greatwavetoday.com)
| imp0cat wrote:
| Thanks for the RSS feed. I added it to my reader (Flipboard) just
| in case I happen to be somewhere near an exhibition.
| msephton wrote:
| (site creator here) My pleasure! Summer is the most popular
| time of year, Japan or USA most likely but many around the
| world means it's quite a varied schedule. Tickets to the France
| exhibition (the print is on loan from Japan) sold out in a day.
| aosaigh wrote:
| How do temporary exhibitions for famous artworks work? Do the
| museums pay the original owners to have it exhibited for a period
| of time? How does it get transported? It must be incredibly
| expensive to ship priceless artworks
| bcraven wrote:
| The full loans process is outlined on the British Museum YT:
|
| https://youtu.be/XuW2wSKOgtU
| akkartik wrote:
| The 'but why?' link is fascinating:
| https://www.britishmuseum.org/blog/not-fade-away-preventive-...
| vasco wrote:
| > This means that if these prints are displayed for three
| months at 50 lux, they should be stored in the dark for at
| least a year before they are displayed again
|
| > While these measures will not stop fading from occurring
| altogether, they will ensure that these world-famous prints
| fade so slowly that they will be seen by countless generations
| of visitors to the Museum in the future.
|
| This trade-off is interesting, are we maximizing for number of
| people watching works? Or are we purely maximizing time?
| Because its not obvious to me that more people will see a work
| if it lasts 1000 more years but spends 80% of that time in
| storage, vs lasting 100 more years spending 0% of the time in
| storage.
|
| Also lets say you go to the museum today and are lucky that it
| happens to be on display. But your friend travels to see it, it
| happens to be in 80% storage time, then the friend goes back
| home and dies without seeing it so that some future person that
| doesn't exist yet even can see it later without fading. Why is
| the future person more important than the current person, in a
| sense?
|
| Storing it assumes a lot, that humanity will survive, that
| people will be interested in seeing it, that some fire isn't
| going to destroy their storage, etc. Meanwhile real life people
| would've seen it already. I don't have an answer, just
| questions though.
| qq66 wrote:
| By limiting the hours today, it helps make sure that the
| people who do see it are the ones most interested in seeing
| it. Those are the ones who will look up the schedule,
| schedule their trip around it, etc... while if it's just
| permanently up, many of the viewers will be random passersby
| (and the number of viewers per hour of illumination will
| probably be lower)
| vasco wrote:
| Ok that is adding an interesting variable of perceived
| interest and then it's not about # of people anymore, but
| rather time plus # of _interested_ people. I guess that has
| to be the reasoning because it does make sense if that's
| the optimization goal.
|
| Though I'd imagine mostly its going to be a random sample
| of people that happen to be there that day. I imagine
| there's likely under 1% of museum visitors actually chasing
| single works and planning trips like that. So most people
| that would see it are still just random "museum people"
| (which under the "interest" metric is still better than
| purely random people).
| qalmakka wrote:
| Exactly this. When I was younger they did an exhibit of the
| Great Wave and Ukiyo-e next to where I lived, so I saved
| the date when the ticket office opened on my calendar. I
| then found friends interested in coming with me and grabbed
| some tickets before they ran out. If you just put it on
| display every day it will just fade away while being yet
| another print in a museum full of paintings. You're denying
| future generations the chance love this print and cherish
| the opportunity to see one in person. Art is not just
| taking a photo and passing by, it's about appreciating the
| fact some human made some very special thing we can now
| enjoy
| MangoToupe wrote:
| > You're denying future generations the chance love this
| print and cherish the opportunity to see one in person.
| Art is not just taking a photo and passing by, it's about
| appreciating the fact some human made some very special
| thing we can now enjoy
|
| I personally don't get this attitude, but I also don't
| understand a lot of what draws people to museums when we
| have photographs of works of art. Which is not to say
| that I don't get why people view works i n person. I just
| don't understand neurotically trying to preserve a
| physical work when the author likely didn't even care
| that much or consider a more preservable medium to begin
| with.
| Angostura wrote:
| For many works, even the best photographs don't entirely
| capture the physical object - particularly those where
| texture, including brush strokes is important. Many
| pigments can't be duplicated via the standard printing
| gamut. This particular work is a woodblock print, so
| perhaps photography is adequate - I don't know.
|
| I'm not clear that the original artist's materials, with
| respect to longevity is really relevant, assuming the
| artist didn't explicitly intend it to be ephemeral.
| refactor_master wrote:
| Tangentially I saw this exhibition in Tokyo on modern
| ukiyo-e https://www.tnm.jp/modules/r_free_page/index.php?
| id=2693&lan... and I was blown away by the incredible
| level of detail the artists were able to pack into
| woodblock print. From a distance it looks almost like
| print, but up close you can really see the textures, and
| interestingly also the physical limitations compared to
| real print (the colors being layered by individually
| carved woodblocks).
|
| With that being said, I'm sure they could make a replica
| that would be almost impossible to tell apart from the
| real. After all, this technique was specifically invented
| for mass production.
| nkrisc wrote:
| Paintings are not simple two-dimensional images. You
| can't view a painting from different angles from a photo.
| You can't see the light reflecting off the texture of the
| paint from different viewing angles. You can't get close
| and observe the brush strokes. A photo of a painting is
| superficially similar to the painting, but there's much
| that it lacks.
| GolDDranks wrote:
| However, in this case, we are not talking about a
| painting, but a woodblock print. (Not disagreeing with
| your point in general, though.)
| umanwizard wrote:
| Photographs of paintings don't look the same as
| paintings. Dunno about woodblock prints but I'd imagine
| the same is true.
| Yeul wrote:
| There's a nice Japan museum in the Netherlands which was
| founded by one of the greatest weebs of the 19th century.
| It's basically his giant house filled with Japanese
| memorabilia. Watching katanas, kimonos and Japanese
| lacquer boxes in reality is quite different from watching
| them in a book!
| southernplaces7 wrote:
| We enjoy seeing art in person because it better transmits
| the essential human creative spirit of whoever was behind
| it, in a way that photographs of an artwork simply don't
| do. This is one main reason why people want to see art in
| person, those who can't understand that maybe don't have
| the same emotional notions about art. I wonder if some of
| them are similar in mind to those who think an AI-
| generated drawing is no different than anything made by a
| human creator for their sterile, impersonal apartment
| walls.
|
| As for why these pieces should be preserved even if their
| creators were sometimes sloppy about doing the original
| legwork. Well, in the case of many famous works, they're
| literal pieces of history dude. Choosing how often and
| when to display them isn't just about "optimizing
| viewership". These aren't blog posts or IG reels. It's
| also about saving their literal existence for as long as
| possible.
| eru wrote:
| > By limiting the hours today, it helps make sure that the
| people who do see it are the ones most interested in seeing
| it.
|
| We should auction off the visitor spots, then.
| msephton wrote:
| You joke, but visitor slots are limited. I missed it at
| the British Museum because I turned up without a
| reservation. Also, BM have two impressions and rotates
| them meaning that people can see "it" (actually one or
| the other) for longer. Some institutions like Boston have
| a handful of impressions so can show "it" more
| frequently: the last time they cycled three.
| pimlottc wrote:
| Similar to this, the Munch Museum in Oslo has three
| variations of "The Scream" on rotation, with only one of
| them shown each day [0]. So you're always guaranteed to
| be able to see it in some form, but you'll have go to
| multiple days if you want to see them all.
|
| 0: https://www.munch.no/en/The-Scream/where-can-i-see-
| the-screa...
| prmoustache wrote:
| Money is not a direct factor of who is interested the
| most so it is not necessary fair.
|
| An example: my partner is working in a relatively
| expensive "wellness" service. Some people reserve and
| never show up even though they have reserved for a whole
| family and lose more than a thousand euros. I am pretty
| sure a lot of people that cannot afford this service at
| this price on a regular basis would if it was less
| expensive for them. I know I do as I only profit from it
| because I have a 50% discount and my partner doesn't have
| to pay so we pay a quarter of the price everytime we go
| together.
|
| So making it an auction and you would still see a mix of
| interested people and vain but wealthy people for which
| paying for this would still be pocket change and would
| just take an "I've been there" selfie and move on without
| really being interested in the artwork itself. So more
| money for the museum but not necessarily representative
| of the interest of the visitors.
| pyrale wrote:
| You mean, that hypothetical friend who wants to see _this_
| particular piece of art in situ _so much_ but didn't bother
| to plan their trip accordingly?
| teekert wrote:
| Scanners are also getting better. Perhaps this way it will
| make it all the way to the atomic cloning era. Just like we
| might all just make it until the "upload your consciousness"
| era, or the "we beat aging" era.
| Muromec wrote:
| No need for scanners in case of wood block prints -- we can
| always get more originals whenever we want.
| plouffy wrote:
| Unless you have access to the original woodblocks then
| not really. And even if you do, they've probably degraded
| quite a bit from the printing process so the result won't
| be identical.
| politelemon wrote:
| Same here, no answers. I'd also question why we should feel
| entitled to see it, or have that privilege at all. The
| curators might, at a certain point in time, hold a great
| appreciation for it versus me Joe public, and then it would
| make sense to simply not show it anymore as the trade-off
| isn't worth it.
| pm215 wrote:
| I think another aspect here is that museums don't have
| infinite display space. So if famous items X, Y and Z are on
| permanent display that's less space available for other, less
| famous but perhaps equally interesting, items that are stuck
| in storage. Rotating the famous items into storage doesn't
| mean the museum has blank walls for a year.
|
| Arguably there's more educational value and more chance of a
| visitor serendipitously encountering something that speaks to
| them if the museum has a big set of prints rotated through,
| rather than a more static one. After all, even if you haven't
| ever seen an original of the Great Wave you almost certainly
| already know the image and it's likely already made most of
| the impact on you that it ever will...
| msephton wrote:
| The British Museum have at least two impressions. Boston have
| five, showing a cycle of three the last time "it" was on
| view. So viewings can be more frequent than the 4 year gap,
| or they can keep the gap and have a longer exhibition. Either
| way, more people get to see it.
| amelius wrote:
| Can we just turn off the lights, move visitors into the room,
| then turn on the lights for a few seconds?
| dylan604 wrote:
| As these are prints themselves, are we gaining anything by
| seeing _these_ prints vs _other_ prints? It 's not like
| viewing an original Monet or anything where the thing being
| viewed was the work created by the artist's hands. While
| these prints might have been made by the artist, they are
| still not the originals.
|
| When visiting DC, do we _really_ think the Constitution under
| all of that glass is the _actual_ Constitution? POTUS seems
| to think he has the actual, so there 's conflict right there.
| For a document as beloved as the Constitution, why would you
| ever risk the original?
| southernplaces7 wrote:
| >When visiting DC, do we really think the Constitution
| under all of that glass is the actual Constitution?
|
| That's a damn good question actually, and for many other
| works in other places, like, say, the Magna Carta, or the
| Declaration of Independence. To the Wikipediamobile
| ADHDMan!
| dylan604 wrote:
| Why do you think Wikipedia wouldn't be lying about the
| same thing?
| sunrunner wrote:
| Such a shame that Hokusai didn't get a chance to read Sarah
| Renae Clark's excellent investigation [1] into lightfastness
| (coincidentally linked yesterday).
|
| [1] https://sarahrenaeclark.com/lightfast-testing-pencils/
| tjpnz wrote:
| There's a Hokusai museum in Tokyo where it's on permanent
| display. You can also catch a sumo match nearby.
|
| https://hokusai-museum.jp/?lang=en
| maratc wrote:
| And another one in Haifa:
| https://www.tmja.org.il/eng/Collection/Ukiyo-e_Woodblock_Pri...
| msephton wrote:
| As far as I'm aware this has never been on view. You can
| probably request to see it privately. (I'm the creator of the
| site in the OP)
| maratc wrote:
| I think it's on view _permanently_ , except when the museum
| is closed (as it is now).
|
| I can't say anything with regards to when it was made
| though.
| msephton wrote:
| Generally, these are so susceptible to fading that they
| are not displayed for more than a short period of time.
| My records go back to 2015 so it could have been on view
| at least a couple of times over that period. I last
| emailed them early-2023 and it was not on view that year,
| and was told it would not be in 2024. Which brings us to
| 2025 and we know how that's going. That said, this
| imprint at Tikotin Museum of Japanese Art is marked as an
| original.
| aoki wrote:
| The Sumida Hokusai Museum is almost entirely a display of
| replicas. They are very upfront about being a "learning" museum
| - they do hold the original prints but display them in
| rotation. We were there last year and there was exactly one
| original print on display (in a back corner of the special
| exhibit room); it was one of the "36 views" but not one of the
| uber-famous ones.
| resheku wrote:
| While most the time they display replica, sometimes they do
| show the original, like for example right now. Sadly no live
| sumo in Ryogoku, the next tournament starts this Sunday in
| Nagoya.
| sharkjacobs wrote:
| What's the advantage of seeing an original piece of art over a
| serviceable replica? Especially in the case where the "original"
| is a print, one of dozens.
|
| Obviously "serviceable" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here, a
| replica might simply not be very good, might not capture some
| vital characteristic of the thing which makes it a great work.
|
| But otherwise, it's basically that the knowledge of how important
| and significant this work is puts the viewer in a more receptive
| frame of mind, right?
|
| To be clear, that's not nothing. I of course know firsthand how
| much that affects the impact of a painting, museums and galleries
| care a lot about how they display their collection. But is that
| it?
| nsxwolf wrote:
| That's mostly it. You see it and say "Wow! That's the
| original!"
| creakingstairs wrote:
| I agree with you that replicas can be great.
|
| Last year, I went to Otsuka museum of art[1] where they have
| life-size replicas of famous paintings (including the Sistine
| chapel), and it was great.
|
| Before going, I was weirdly hung up about going to somewhere to
| see "replicas" instead of the real thing. But once I got there,
| I loved every second of it. All the artworks were replicated
| with careful detail in life size, so I felt like I wasn't
| missing much. In fact, I felt like I was enjoying it more!
| There were no crowds. I could get as close to the artworks as I
| wanted to. The lighting was great, since they didn't have to
| worry about damaging the paints. It was more engaging for the
| kids as they could free touch some of the replicated potteries
| etc.
|
| It is a bit out of the way, but I'd highly recommend anyone
| going to Japan to check out that museum and maybe the onaruto
| bridge [2] on the way
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%8Ctsuka_Museum_of_Art
|
| [2] https://www.japan.travel/national-
| parks/parks/setonaikai/see...
| isolli wrote:
| Tangentially related, I remember that when the Sistine chapel
| was renovated in the 90s, people were shocked to see the
| vivid colors again. For decades, people had traveled far to
| see the original in person, when it was in fact but a shadow
| of itself.
| bravesoul2 wrote:
| That looks incredible and a $400M cost in 1998 it must be
| grand! Basically half a 1997 Amazon ;)
| treetalker wrote:
| As you say, some works seem to lose something in any
| reproduction. _La Giaconda_ ( _Mona Lisa_ ) is a great example:
| any reproduction you may have seen in books or online hasn't
| captured the rainbow of background color in the original, or
| the sensation of viewing a living person sitting for a portrait
| when viewed at a few paces in the Louvre.
| guappa wrote:
| The original one is behind an extremely thick layer of glass
| that completely distorts the colours.
| isolli wrote:
| It is now, but it used not to be...
| AlanYx wrote:
| The Mona Lisa has been behind a thick bulletproof layer
| of glass since 1956.
|
| I'm kind of surprised actually that they haven't found a
| better way to exhibit it in close to 70 years. But the
| protective layer is a big part of why it's underwhelming
| in person.
| isolli wrote:
| You are correct. I was convinced I had seen her
| unprotected in my childhood. Memories can be deceptive...
| klausa wrote:
| That's fascinating response! Mona Lisa is, to me, _the_
| example of an artwork that is actually better viewed online
| instead of in person.
|
| The painting is way smaller than you expect, it's always
| crowded with folks who want to take selfies, it's behind so
| many layers of glass/plastic that distort the colors -- it's
| really, really hard to actually have any chance to appreciate
| it person.
| empath75 wrote:
| There is a "copy" of the Mona Lisa at the Prado in Madrid
| that has been restored, and there is never a crowd around it.
| It might have been made by Leonardo himself or one of his
| students, but it was probably made at the same time.
| ninetyninenine wrote:
| Humans thrive on the illusion of that reality is better than
| the replica even when the replica is for all intents and
| purposes 100 percent identical.
|
| In fact the replica can even be enhanced. Feed it into an LLM
| or diffuser and produce something better. But now we call this
| AI slop even when the slop is superior to most of what humans
| can ever produce in their lifetimes.
|
| I think the key is not to pretend you're above it. Don't be
| that idiot in the corner asking stupid questions like "why do
| humans listen to music it's just patterns of sound waves that
| have no intrinsic meaning and why do they sing songs and
| communicate in complicated ways when plain English works"
|
| Are you human? Embrace your humanity and stop pretending you're
| some genius savant who's so above it all that he can't
| comprehend human nature. You know why people want to see the
| real thing for the same reason why a bunch of people want to go
| to concerts and listen to music that is objectively worse than
| the recording. If you understand music then you understand art.
| Don't pretend you don't.
| sfn42 wrote:
| I have some wool sweaters, home made by people I care about.
| I also have some store bought wool sweaters. By almost any
| measure, the store boughts are better. But I don't care about
| them.
|
| If the store bought ones get destroyed or worn out I can just
| get a new one. The hand made ones are irreplaceable. They
| represent a huge personal time investment by someone who
| cares enough about me to do that work for me.
|
| Art may be a little different but I reckon it's the same
| idea.
| MangoToupe wrote:
| > You know why people want to see the real thing for the same
| reason why a bunch of people want to go to concerts and
| listen to music that is objectively worse than the recording.
|
| This seems like such a blatant apples and oranges comparison
| I'm not sure where to begin:
|
| 1. Live music is often better than studio recordings, 2. You
| can record memories with loved ones there that have no
| analogue in viewing a static piece of art, and 3. You're
| supporting a living artist.
|
| People just want to view the mona lisa to because it's an
| easily purchasable experience widely seen to have value. Or
| something like that; to be honest, I don't quite grasp the
| psychology and visiting paris seems like it's not worth the
| effort.
| timr wrote:
| > What's the advantage of seeing an original piece of art over
| a serviceable replica? Especially in the case where the
| "original" is a print, one of dozens.
|
| And when you consider that "original" in woodblock prints is a
| Ship of Theseus thing -- over the years, prints have been made
| by different printers (frequently using different colors!),
| employed by different publishers, using blocks that have been
| re-carved by different craftspeople -- the "original", in any
| traditional sense, is only the painting made by Hokusai.
|
| When you start diving into the world of collecting woodblock
| prints, you realize that "authenticity" is a subtle concept,
| and prices can differ by thousands of dollars (or far more)
| based on little more than a publisher's mark and/or the age of
| the paper. It's an area where encyclopedic knowledge really is
| required to understand exactly what you're looking at.
|
| For example, you can easily find lots of "authentic" Hokusai
| prints in the <$1000 range (sometimes much lower), but these
| are all modern prints, done on re-carved blocks. Some of the
| cheapest have been done in the past 20 years.
| Muromec wrote:
| Hokusai would want you to buy one of those 100 bucks re
| prints and get it on your wall to see.
| sandspar wrote:
| For me it's just more fun to see the original. My museum hobby
| is pointless, basically, so I feel free to set myself little
| rules. Perhaps it makes sense to think of going to museums as a
| type of collection hobby. Collectors typically seek
| authenticity, even if it's a bit silly. A rare Magic the
| Gathering card is merely cardboard, but ah - it's the special
| cardboard! Or take birding: I can see a pileated woodpecker on
| YouTube any time, but to see one in person, what bliss!
| kragen wrote:
| One of the most famous essays in the history of art criticism
| concerns precisely this question; this is probably the single
| intellectual work of the Frankfurt school for which it is
| remembered today, if we don't count inspiring right-wing
| conspiracy theories.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Work_of_Art_in_the_Age_of_...
|
| https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/...
| (Zohn translation)
|
| https://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/benjamin.pdf (Zohn translation)
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20220128111229/http://raumgegenz...
| (French, blocked)
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20180730163618/https://www.artec...
| (German)
|
| This is probably a good time to reread it, since AI art is
| forcing us to revisit many of the same questions from a new
| perspective.
| riffraff wrote:
| Countless people see replicas everyday, don't know they're
| replicas, and are happy about it.
|
| Sometimes the replicas themselves are so old they become a
| monument on their own right, like some "Egyptian" obelisks in
| Rome, which are roman copies.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_obelisks_in_Rome
| jojobas wrote:
| You're not winning this, there are people arguing on which of
| the four original Black Square paintings is _better_.
| msephton wrote:
| It's the whole experience for me. It's a bit like asking why
| you would go to see a movie at the cinema when you can watch it
| on your smart phone--it's possible but when the opportunity to
| see it as its meant to be seen presents itself why wouldn't
| you? So it's the fact that it is "an original" (though there's
| no such thing with woodblocks)--in this case unique in many
| ways compared to any other imprint of The Great Wave. Plus the
| curation: when I saw one at Bristol they had other Hokusai
| works such as manga and his other waves and fuji that were kind
| of precursor to The Great Wave. ps: I made the site in the OP.
| W3zzy wrote:
| The Japanese also look at this from a different angle. A shrine
| that has been rebuild every few decades is still an ancient
| shrine to them. A reprint of an ancient block print is still an
| original to them.
|
| I get confronted with the preservation of buildings quite often
| and have to point out now and then that the building they are
| trying to preserve is nowhere near the original. Through the
| ages we've modified those building to suit our needs. Why stop
| now?
|
| It's only a matter of preserving culture with respect do or the
| past.
| dyauspitr wrote:
| Like many things in life, only the original has gravitas. It's
| not so much about the technical ability or the properties of
| the painting, it's the aura around it that people want to be
| in.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| A Show HN: in 2023: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35985221
| NaOH wrote:
| Previously:
|
| _[Show HN:] Where can I see Hokusai 's Great Wave today?_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35985221 - May 2023 (114
| comments)
| dang wrote:
| Thanks! Macroexpanded:
|
| _Where can I see Hokusai 's Great Wave today?_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44223424 - June 2025 (1
| comment)
|
| _Where can I see Hokusai 's Great Wave today?_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35985221 - May 2023 (113
| comments)
|
| _Where can I see Hokusai 's Great Wave today?_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35700834 - April 2023 (1
| comment)
|
| _Where can I see Hokusai 's 'Great Wave Off Kanagawa' at a
| museum today?_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35555378
| - April 2023 (1 comment)
|
| Also:
|
| _Things to know about the Great Wave_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41474449 - Sept 2024 (90
| comments)
|
| _Hokusai 's 'Great Wave' features on new Japanese banknotes
| (2019)_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40688921 - June
| 2024 (50 comments)
|
| _1-Bit Hokusai's "The Great Wave"_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35866283 - May 2023 (72
| comments)
|
| _The 'Great Wave' has mystified art lovers for generations
| (2019)_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26994024 - April
| 2021 (63 comments)
|
| _Iconic Print, "The Great Wave Off Kanagawa," Recreated with
| 50k Lego Bricks_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25482654 - Dec 2020 (12
| comments)
|
| _The 'Great Wave' has mystified art lovers for generations
| (2019)_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22025618 - Jan
| 2020 (27 comments)
|
| _A Great Wave of Hokusai_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21757078 - Dec 2019 (2
| comments)
|
| _What Hokusai's Great Wave tells us about museums, copyright,
| online collections_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20547824 - July 2019 (24
| comments)
|
| ---
|
| Also, Hokusai apart from the Wave:
|
| _Hokusai Moyo Gafu: an album of dyeing patterns_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44224992 - June 2025 (14
| comments)
|
| _Hokusai 's five ghoulish prints for the series Hyaku
| Monogatari (ca. 1830)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41989260 - Oct 2024 (17
| comments)
|
| _Hokusai 's rare Mt. Fuji collection sold for $3.6M. at N.Y.
| auction_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39762679 -
| March 2024 (7 comments)
|
| _Hokusai's Illustrated Warrior Vanguard of Japan and China
| (1836)_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36808566 - July
| 2023 (3 comments)
|
| _Late Hokusai: Thought, technique, society_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34403383 - Jan 2023 (12
| comments)
|
| _Hokusai and 'The Great Picture Book of Everything': The
| Latest Research_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31711386 - June 2022 (2
| comments)
|
| _British Museum makes lost Hokusai drawings available online_
| - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24542001 - Sept 2020 (31
| comments)
|
| _A picture of change for a world in constant motion_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24090950 - Aug 2020 (3
| comments)
|
| _Hokusai: Old man, crazy to paint (2017)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21557558 - Nov 2019 (5
| comments)
|
| _Hokusai's Ghost Stories (ca. 1830)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18657668 - Dec 2018 (1
| comment)
|
| _The Magician of Manga_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13057213 - Nov 2016 (10
| comments)
| seafoamteal wrote:
| I only recently learned about this piece after reading Gabrielle
| Zevin's Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow. It's on the cover and
| it plays a somewhat important role in the story.
| esperent wrote:
| The Great Wave is a deservedly famous piece of art, but if it's
| the only thing of Hokusai that you know, do yourself a favor and
| look up some of his other work.
|
| Waterfall penance is my favorite.
|
| https://www.tremontauctions.com/auction-lot/hokusai-katsushi...
|
| He also made some weird art involving an octopus and a woman,
| which is insightful both for understanding the other side of a
| famous artist, and also some of the weirder things in modern
| Japanese manga.
|
| _Edit:_ after I made this comment I was reminded of a comic I
| saw on reddit, where the artist was bemoaning their dream of
| getting paid to draw beautiful art, versus the reality where the
| only people willing to actually pay for art all want furry porn.
| So maybe not much has changed really, and maybe it says less
| about Japanese culture, and more about the general human
| condition.
| bcraven wrote:
| I suggest you look up the documentary _Hokusai: Old Man Crazy
| to Paint_ .[0]
|
| It discusses how Hokusai changed his artistic style every ~10
| years for his own pleasure.
|
| [0]
| https://docuwiki.net/index.php?title=Hokusai:_Old_Man_Crazy_...
| 7373737373 wrote:
| https://www.wikiart.org/en/katsushika-hokusai/all-works#!#fi...
| dekhn wrote:
| "The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife" is an amazing piece of art
| (generally considered NSFW).
|
| The entire "Thirty Six Views of Mount Fuji" series is
| phenomenal, really a testament to the japanese philosophy of
| sublime minimalism. But nothing really hits me like The Great
| Wave, with its dramatic foreground composition (look at those
| guys clinging to the boats!) and the tranquil majesty of Fuji
| in the distance.
| lutusp wrote:
| This alludes to a longstanding debate with no meaningful
| resolution.
|
| I can see and appreciate Michelangelo's "David", in one of its
| two best-known Italian renderings (not counting the one in Las
| Vegas), even though the sculpture's human model, and the artist,
| are long dead.
|
| I think Banksy has the right idea, even though people do what
| they can to undermine his works -- by, among other things, chain-
| sawing them out of the walls the artist chose to make his point,
| then offering them for sale.
|
| A copy of a book isn't a travesty, so why should a copy of a
| painting be one?
| bcraven wrote:
| There's also a full-size plaster cast of David in 'The Castle
| Courts' at the V&A in London that's been there since 1857!
|
| https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/the-story-of-michelangelos-da...
| npteljes wrote:
| >A copy of a book isn't a travesty, so why should a copy of a
| painting be one?
|
| This is because of how humans appreciate where the spirit of a
| work is. In case of a book, most of the essence is in the
| words, not in the paper or the ink - although, people do
| appreciate the print itself too to a great deal. But because
| the words carry the most meaning, the work gets copied,
| translated, even modernized, and agreed to not lose much of its
| meaning. After the mass printing era, there is no such thing as
| "a single master book" when referring to a work. There can be
| drafts, a manuscript, generations of copies referred to as
| different editions, etc. It's a mass production affair with a
| blueprint and products, whereas in case of a painting, there is
| a single, final version original usually, and subsequent
| reproductions are copies and modifications of that.
|
| The other thing is that a copy of a painting is not a travesty
| at all. Many appreciate and decorate with replicas, prints,
| view them online, use them as wallpaper on their device, etc. I
| don't think people think of any of this as a travesty. The
| issue here is to present a copy as the original, in which case
| the replica becomes a fake. This is a lie, and a betrayal, and
| these evoke strong feelings in humans.
| empath75 wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4C2nt72h0cQ
|
| Orson Welles made a great documentary on this topic.
| npteljes wrote:
| "F for Fake" - Documentary, 7.7/10 on imdb, 88% on RT. "A
| documentary about fraud and fakery."
|
| At first I was a bit mad that you linked a 1.5 hour video
| just like that, but this sounds really interesting after
| all. Thanks for the recommendation.
| OPBoot wrote:
| Or you can support current artists in the same genre such as
| David Bull at Mokuhankan, who is working hard to keep the art of
| traditional Japanese woodblock printing alive.
|
| Yes - you can also buy a copy of the Great Wave, and it's
| beautiful.
|
| https://mokuhankan.com/index.html
| rjh29 wrote:
| Well, you -could- buy a copy, it now seems like there's a very
| very long waiting list.
| msephton wrote:
| I bought my repro from Japan, by one of the many other people
| doing reprints.
| darkstar_16 wrote:
| Or you could buy the Lego version :)
| burnt-resistor wrote:
| The cover for _Applications of Digital Signal Processing to Audio
| and Acoustics_
|
| I'm (mis)remembering it was on a math textbook of some kind,
| perhaps a 90's era high school AP calculus BC text.
| poulpy123 wrote:
| I was wondering how it can be displayed in 2 museums
| simultaneously and it's because there is around 100 prints of it
| msephton wrote:
| I'm the creator of the site and it's great to see it on HN again.
| Since it was featured in 2023 the site has become even more
| automated and also searches press releases for related news which
| I share from time to time on social media. There's currently a
| digital exhibition on arrival at Tokyo Narita airport, things
| like that.
|
| The current exhibition in Nantes, France, (whose print is on loan
| from Japan) sold out very quickly. Before I could even organise
| my travel! So the fascination with The Great Wave lives on.
| dale_glass wrote:
| Thanks for making the site, but this link:
|
| https://greatwavetoday.com/all-institutions.csv.txt isn't
| working.
| msephton wrote:
| Just fixed, somebody reported it on github. Thanks both!
| funkydata wrote:
| So, actually, on the museum's ticketing site they say that the
| internet tickets are sold out, but if you actually get there,
| there's a limited amount of tickets that are sold each day
| (because not everyone uses the internet) : "Merci de noter que
| des places pour la visite le jour meme sont en vente chaque
| jour directement a l'accueil de l'exposition, dans la limite
| des places disponibles.".
| msephton wrote:
| Ah, thanks! Sadly, I have now booked my holiday travel
| excluding France so I will have to miss this one.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Reminds me a bit of the old "Is Abe Vigoda Dead?" Web site:
| http://isabevigodadead.com
| amarcheschi wrote:
| The thing I found funny about it is that it's so tiny I almost
| passed it by without recognizing it at first. It sets high
| expectations by being called great
| gwbas1c wrote:
| Yeah, same thing happened to me when I saw it in Boston.
| Because of the way it's been copied, I always thought it was a
| giant painting. (I'm not a huge art fan, I just happened to be
| in the museum one day with my family.)
| m3kw9 wrote:
| Right on that website I can see it.
| mNovak wrote:
| If you're interested in these prints, David Bull [1] is a really
| great resource on YT, in terms of exploring how these were made
| and lots of history on specific pieces.
|
| He does a whole series on the Great Wave. It was interesting to
| learn that it's essentially impossible to know if a given
| impression is "original" as it was widely copied in Hokusai's own
| lifetime. He compares copies from various museum collections, and
| finds many of them come from different block-sets.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/@seseragistudio
| fusslo wrote:
| I grew up in Connecticut. I always thought we had to travel to
| Boston, Philadelphia, or NYC to see great art.
|
| Then, after I moved halfway across the country I learned about
| The Hill-Stead museum, the Wadsworth, Florence Griswold museum,
| New Britain Museum of art, Yale, and even Uconn
|
| Now, I'm kinda melancholy about missing out on these experiences
| xnx wrote:
| https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/3gF011oIXv3kcQ
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