1/17/2024 0 Comments Japanese tidal wave art![]() ![]() Under the Wave off Kanagawa ( Kanagawa oki nami ura), 1830/33. Light blue areas in late impressions (left: Katsushika Hokusai. Note how different this late printing looks compared to the early printing – the sky is much more colourful and the printmaker has inked the grey woodblock in such a way as to depict rain in the sky, which is incredibly rare. You can see the location and the order in which the losses took place on a late printing below. I noticed that breaks in the keyblock also occurred in the outline of Mount Fuji in the background and in the outline of a wave on the right. Later on, the publisher (whose role was to commission and sell prints) would make changes in order to appeal to more customers or lower the cost of production. Early printings are very important as experts believe that the artists only chose the colours and printing effects for these prints. The print of the Great Wave in the first image of this blog has no breaks in its outlines – it is an early printing. Compare the pristine cartouche on the left with the three breaks in the cartouche on the right. Over time, the ridges of the title cartouche in the Great Wave suffered damage in three areas. later prints made with a different set of woodblocks) that were falsely labelled as originals, but that is another story. During the detective work I also came across some reproductions (i.e. In total, I managed to obtain photographs of 111 original prints. I found several photographs of the Great Wave using the Google Arts & Culture and online on Flickr, Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram and even TripAdvisor (the Great Wave is very popular on social media!). I also examined books and approached art dealers and private collectors. I consulted the online collections of numerous museums, galleries and libraries as well as the records of major auction houses. To study the evolution of the design of the print, I have been searching for surviving impressions. Therefore, it is likely that the majority of the prints of the Great Wave have been lost, so we have a limited number that we can compare and analyse. And because the prints were not considered valuable at the time, their owners did not take much care of them and in most cases would end up throwing them away! Earthquakes and fires were also frequent in Japanese cities and many prints were destroyed. Experts have estimated that this might represent around 8,000 prints. But given the commercial success of the design, printmakers would have produced prints until the woodblocks literally wore out. No records of the number of prints of the Great Wave produced during the Edo Period exist, and how many of these have survived to this day has not been established. Close up on the area under the boat on the left hand side of two prints of the Great Wave: the wave outline is well-defined in the print on the left but has almost disappeared in the print on the right.
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