Under the Wave off Kanagawa (The Great Wave)

This woodblock print opened Hokusai’s series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, yet the mountain is the smallest thing in it. A great wave rises over three long boats whose rowers bend low over their oars. The crest breaks into foam shaped like grasping fingers. Far behind, Fuji sits small and calm, white-capped, as if it were another wave that happens to stay still. The deep blue came from a newly imported pigment, Prussian blue, which printers in Japan had only lately begun to use. Because it is a print, thousands of impressions once existed. That a picture made to be cheap and plentiful became one of the most recognized images on Earth is part of its quiet charm.

Look closely

1. Find Mount Fuji, then notice how the hollow of the wave frames it.
2. Count the rowers. How are they meeting the wave: fighting it or bowing under it?
3. Look at the foam at the crest. What does it remind you of?

While you sit

Everything here is moving except the mountain. Be the mountain for a while.

Your seat in the galleries: a cedar bench whose seat rises and dips in one long curve, like the back of a wave.