Foreigners were expelled, western culture was forbidden, and  entering or leaving japan was punishable by death.  

It would remain that way for over 200 years. It was  under these circumstances that a quintessentially  

Japanese art developed - art for the people - that was consumed on an unprecedented scale.  

The Great Wave off Kanagawa by Hokusai was  made around 1830. It was a time when the rest  

of the world was becoming industrialized, and the  Japanese were concerned about foreign invasions.  

At first sight the Great Wave is simply  an image of a serene and timeless Japan,  

but take a closer look and you see that this beautiful wave is about to engulf three boats of terrified fishermen,

as mount Fuji and the shores of Japan, recede into the distance. This is an image of Japan, fearful that the sea,

which has protected its peaceful isolation for so long will become its downfall.

This is an image of Japan facing an uncertain future.

The Edo period refers both to the city of Edo, now called Tokyo, and to a time  period.

From 1615 to 1868, during which, after  centuries of civil war, the Tokugawa Shogun  

or feudal overlords, took over Japan. The shogun believed that Christianity in particular  

and other foreign influences were a threat  to the newfound stability of the country. 

And so it cut itself off from the world. Strict social order was imposed:  

At the top were the emperor, court nobles and the shoguns, then the population was split  

into, first Samurai then Farming peasants then artisans. And finally merchants.

Any interaction between the classes was forbidden, and there were strict codes of public behavior for all classes.  

Edo by the mid-18th century was the biggest city in the world, with a population of one million.  

As the economy boomed, the merchants, once  considered the lowest social class, rose through  

the ranks and increasingly could afford luxuries, like education, travel within Japan, books and art.

The merchant's search for sensual pleasures became known as "ukiyo" meaning "the floating world".  

A culture that developed in the red light district of Edo. It was here that, alongside brothels, you  

would find Kabuki theatres, puppet shows, poets and writers. The commercial prints being produced  

were mostly famous courtesans and kabuki actors. Like today it was sex and celebrity that sold!

Woodblock prints were known as "ukiyo-e" or "pictures  of the floating world" and sold in the thousands.  

It was a craze like modern day trading cards, and there was a constant demand for new images, 

new celebrities and new prints to collect. Although  printed by hand, mass production made them highly  

profitable for the publishers. The Great Wave was  probably printed at least eight thousand times.  

However, it is important to stress that  traditional painting was still considered noble,  

and beyond the means of most  merchants, whereas these prints  

could be bought for the price of a bowl of noodles, but were still considered  low in social prestige.

Despite the highly controlled atmosphere during the Edo period  

the arts flourished and ukiyo-e ensured art was no longer restricted only to those of high status.

Hokusai was born in 1760 and made his reputation as a teenager, painting portraits of kabuki actors  

for woodblock prints. He would later move away from the images of celebrities and focus on landscapes,  

and images of the daily life of Japanese people.  This change of subject was a breakthrough in  

both ukiyo-e and in Hokusai's career, and his work became the most sought after in Japan.  

Despite a successful professional life he had a fair run of bad luck in his personal life.  

Both his wives and two children pre-deceased him and he was struck by lightning at 50.

And then he suffered a stroke which meant he had to re-learn how to draw.

Reaching the age of 60 in japan is a time to celebrate. Rather than seen as getting old, it is viewed as a time for rebirth.  

Hokusai's last decades were in fact when he produced his best and most loved works.

As he himself said: "All I have done before the age of seventy is not worth bothering with".

And it WAS at the age of 70 when he embarked on his most ambitious project yet: "36 views of mount Fuji".

One of which was The Great Wave.

Mount fuji was sacred in japan with over 800 shrines dedicated to it. Religious confraternities were known as

Fuji-kō or Fuji cults, and for Hokusai,  Mount Fuji was a personal spiritual obsession.  

As well as a site of religious pilgrimages, it  was seen as an important symbol of strength and  

stability in Japan, still isolated and enveloped  with its own tradition and culture. 

in 36 views, Hokusai shows Mount Fuji as it is seen from the  forest, the village, the lake, the river and the beach.

But it was the sea view known as The Great Wave off Kanagawa that would create international interest in Japanese art.

Hokusai would become the first ukiyo-e artist to use landscape as the main focus

of these mass-produced images. The 36 views  were classic Hokusai: Condensing images to their  

purest form, and placing importance on line and color. They feature the ordinary working-class man  

within the sacred landscape. A perfect blend of  the physical and the metaphysical.

Landscape prints were not nearly as popular as the celebrity prints. But their sales would increase  

as travel within Japan increased.

By the late 18th century, there was a steady flow of merchants, peddlers, pilgrims  

and pleasure seekers heading to Mount Fuji. These people would prove to be an enthusiastic audience  

for a new genre of souvenirs: Woodblock prints  showing views of famous places throughout Japan.  

In 1829, Prussian blue, a synthetic colour which  had been very expensive, became available at a  

low price via China, making it possible to use  in ukiyo-e prints. Hokusai's publisher, always  

on the lookout for novel selling points. promptly  commissioned "36 views" in order to exploit this  

new innovative colour. The first five prints  in the series, were printed almost entirely  

in shades of Prussian blue, with some indigo. Even the outlines which are usually printed in black,  

are also in blue. They would be marketed to the  public as "aizuri-e". Compared to previous blues  

Prussian blue was more vivid, had greater tonal  range, and most importantly didn't fade.

It also  made the prints 'exotic' and therefore desirable to  the general public. By using different saturations  

of the same colour, Hokusai, a master of light and  shade, gives us the impressions of the hours before dawn

or after dusk, when our eyes can't make  out distinct shades, because of the soft light.  

Although Japan's borders were officially closed,  the Dutch, who had never tried to push Christianity  

were allowed two trading ships per year. This was  just about, the only direct connection between  

Japan and Europe at the time. It was how Hokusai  came to see Dutch landscape prints, which would  

have a major influence on his work. Western artists  fix the physical position of the viewer whereas in  

Japanese landscape painting there is no distinct  point to guide us. The Japanese were inclined to  

depict a panoramic view of the scene, perhaps more  like a floating view. Time too is fixed in western art,

whereas Japanese art was more fluid, and often  included several time windows.

Although Japanese  paintings or "high art" were not confined by strict linear perspective, low brow images like ukio-e  

used European perspective as a sort of novelty,  and were promoted as "uki-e" or perspective pictures.  

Hokusai would put everything he'd learnt about  style, colour, light and technique over six decades  

into his "36 views of Mount Fuji" and one of those  views would bring his work international acclaim.   

Ironically, this print which in the west is  seen as a characteristically Japanese image,  

is in fact a hybrid of Japanese and European ideas.  The Great Wave is 25 centimetres by 37 centimetres.  

Hokusai experiments with a low horizon, typical  of Dutch landscapes, which gives it an element  

of dynamism through the movement of the  wave, which takes up two-thirds of the image.  

If we look at earlier Japanese  seascapes we see more of a 'floating view',  

the dark shade of Mount Fuji and the brightness of  the snow-covered cap, suggest it is early morning,  

with the sun rising from behind the viewer, lighting the peak. The location is off Kanagawa  

which is south of Edo or Tokyo. Tossed about in  the waves are three fast boats, which were used  

to transport live fish to the markets in Edo.  Hokusai had worked with European perspective  

for some time now, and with the Great Wave, he would  take deep perspective to its ultimate conclusion,  

with Mount Fuji, the star of the series, AND the  highest point in Japan, dwarfed by this huge wave in the  

foreground, whose spray is becoming the  snow falling on Mount Fuji. As the Great Wave  

breaks, the same spray creates ominous claw-like  figures. It is the distance of Mount Fuji that  

adds a sense of dread, an element of uncertainty  as to whether the fisherman will make it to shore.  

An earlier wave print, shows  a wave breaking at the beach  

near the island of Enoshima, while another  print, has an enormous wave about to hit a boat.  

These previous attempts look fairly lifeless and  static, but the great wave captures perfectly the  

energy of the moment BEFORE a huge wave crashes  down onto the fragile boats beneath.

The embodiment  of Hokusai's belief, that art has a life of its  own, a life force. In the cartouche is written  

the full title "36 views of Mount Fuji Offshore  from Kanagawa beneath the wave."

And to the left  of that, is Hokusai's signature, which says "From  the Brush of Hokusai, Changing his Name to litsu".  

Hokusai changed his name at least 30 times over  his career. This was common for Japanese artists.  

Even though Japan was still closed off, fear of  invasion by sea, was very real. In the waning days  

of the Tokugawa shoguns. There was already talk of  foreign incursions into Japan. One theory is that  

the uncertainty and danger of Hokusai's sea, reflects  an uncertain Japan, which along with the struggles  

of the fishermen, is a sharp contrast to Mount  Fuji. Representing, then and now, the very soul of  

Japan itself, solid and unmoving. The Great Wave was  closely tied to the inevitable end of shogun rule,  

and therefore Japan's isolation. Hokusai portrays  the sea, over which these European things and ideas  

traveled, with stark ambiguity. This is not an  image of timeless serenity, but of instability and uncertainty.

Woodblock prints need a team:  Publisher, artist, block cutter and printer.  

Hokusai hardly ever worked alone. First, a  publisher would commission an image from the artist,

who would create a design on thin paper, a block ready drawing.

If we look at this  modern recreation of The Great Wave wood block, we see it is reversed, and then glued to the block.  

It is then rubbed down with an instrument  called a "baren". While it is still damp from  

the moisture in the glue, the carver will rub  with his fingers, and peel off most of the paper.  

Leaving just the lines of the original image on  the surface of the wood block. The original design  

would be destroyed in the making of the block. The carver then reproduces the artist's brush lines in wood.

Only the best carvers worked on Hokusai  prints, as the detail he expected was extraordinary.

Of course this is a print, and it has been carved,  but this looks exactly like the artist's brush strokes,

replicated perfectly by the wood block carver. It was carved from a hard wood, like cherry tree,

as it needed to withstand hand printing - one  at a time - thousands of times. The first print would  

often differ significantly from the later prints,  as the block wore down, and fine details were lost,  

as we see here. Colours too would change over  the print run. Here, the one on the left is  

not only a different colour, but also  has a less subtle graduation in colour.  

The printer then inks the block.

Lays a sheet of paper on top of the inked block,  and then uses the "buren" to transfer the ink, on to  

the paper. The artist would mark a proof, indicating  where the colours were to go. And a carver then  

made a set of colour blocks. One block would be  carved for each colour that was used in the prints.  

This printing technique ensures that  every print has a one-off quality.  

A closer look, shows us that, the physical labour,  leaves unique indentations on the surface of  

the handmade paper. Behind the simplicity of The  Great Wave is a complicated and delicate process.  

A process, that is only possible thanks  to a dedicated team of skilled craftsmen.

For Hokusai, Mount Fuji was a talisman of longevity.  

He was convinced, he would live to 110, and was  certain that the older he got, the better he became.  

He would live to the incredible age of eighty-nine.  In a time when the average lifespan was fifty.

His energy and vitality never left  him and he never stopped experimenting.  

He was producing paintings until his dying day.  Unfortunately later in life, he was forced to use  

his life savings, to pay off his grandson's  gambling debts, and he would die penniless.

Japan's self-imposed isolation came to an end,  when a flotilla of fully armed ships,

sailed uninvited into Tokyo harbour on behalf of the US government,

and demanded, that the  Japanese begin to trade with the US.

Japanese art, which had developed over two  centuries of isolation, was finally revealed  

to an astonished world. Bold designs, intense  colours, simple lines, and areas of flat colour,  

would influence a whole generation of artists, and precipitate modern art. One artist in particular  

would produce a painting, that I believe was  directly inspired by Hokusai's The Great Wave.

In my next video, I discuss  "Starry Night" by Vincent van Gogh.