Hokusai created which famous woodblock print of a wave near Mount Fuji?

Hokusai created The Great Wave, formally titled The Great Wave off Kanagawa, as a famous woodblock print of a wave near Mount Fuji.

Katsushika Hokusai designed the print around 1831 during Japan’s Edo period. It shows three boats struggling through a stormy sea while a huge curling wave dominates the foreground. Mount Fuji appears in the distance, visually echoed by the wave’s triangular shape.

The print is part of Hokusai’s series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, which ultimately contained forty-six designs. Its striking blue comes partly from Prussian blue, an imported pigment that offered greater durability and intensity than many earlier Japanese blues. The work was produced through ukiyo-e woodblock printing, allowing multiple impressions to be sold rather than creating a unique painted original.

The wave is sometimes casually called a tsunami, but the image does not establish that interpretation. It may represent a powerful breaking wave or a rogue wave. Hokusai’s composition later influenced European artists, especially Impressionists, and became one of the most recognizable images in global art.