Start with the object
Where is the original?
There is no single definitive version to locate. The Great Wave is a woodblock-print design, known through multiple surviving impressions. [3] Here, an impression means one sheet printed from the blocks.
The image above shows one particular sheet, accession JP1847 at The Met in New York. Its dimensions belong to that sheet, not to every surviving Great Wave. [1] Another Met impression, JP2569, is compared below. [2]
Planning a visit? The Met listed JP1847 as not on view when checked on 20 September 2026. Collection ownership does not establish gallery display. Check the museum’s current record before travelling. Other collections hold impressions too: where to see Hokusai’s work.
Film · The Underdrawing · 12 min
You’ve Never Seen the Real Great Wave
The Underdrawing’s film follows the design, the blue and the many originals.
Chapters
Read the main ideas
A short reading companion based on this page’s sources, rather than a verbatim transcript of the film.
The image and the object. The two Met sheets are separate impressions of the same design. Each has its own accession number and measurements. [1] [2]
The foreground and the distance. Follow the boats across the water, then find Fuji beneath the crest. Hodge describes how the small foreground wave echoes the shape of the distant mountain. [6]
Looking at different impressions. Block damage can help researchers establish printing order. The worked example below explains which lines to look for and why colour alone is insufficient. [3]
Continue through the guided details and the section on blue to explore the evidence at your own pace.
A guided look
Let the small things change the picture
Three details, each shown large. The small frame marks where each detail sits in the print.
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Look 1 of 3
Find Mount Fuji
Start below the curling crest. The mountain occupies a tiny part of the sheet, although the series is named for it. Now look back at the wave: near and far have very different visual weight. The Met draws attention to this play with perspective. [1]
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Look 2 of 3
Follow the boats
The long hulls can initially disappear into the water’s curves. Follow one until you find the people. Their scale changes the wave from an abstract curl into a danger faced by human bodies.
Hodge identifies the vessels as oshiokuri-bune, fast boats used to transport fish to Edo. [6] The activity behind the image belongs to the working life of the bay.
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Look 3 of 3
Compare wave and mountain
Hodge points out the resemblance between the smaller foreground wave and a miniature Fuji. [6] Move your eye between them: a temporary shape in water echoes the distant mountain. The resemblance is visible; a single fixed symbolic meaning is not established by it.
Two sheets, individually identified
Same design. Different impressions.
The Met object record · Public domain [1]
The Met object record · Public domain [2]
The title box
Compare the outline of the title box and the strokes of the characters. Look for lines that look heavier in one sheet and finer in the other.
The crest
Compare the fine lines around the foam. Follow one curl of claws in each sheet.
The sky beside Mount Fuji
Compare the sky around the mountain. Any difference you see mixes three things: how each sheet was printed, how it aged, and how it was photographed.
Compare the sky, the title box and the fine lines around the foam. An online image records both a physical print and the choices made in photographing it. Apparent colour differences alone cannot tell us which sheet was printed first, or how much either has faded.
What can establish printing order?
British Museum scientist Capucine Korenberg compared impressions for losses in fine printed lines caused by damage to the blocks. Her illustrated study shows how such evidence can distinguish stages of printing. It also identifies changes associated with replacement colour blocks. [3]
A worked example: a line beneath the boat
In Korenberg’s illustrated comparison, look beneath the left-hand boat. A fine line survives in British Museum impression 2008,3008.1; a section is absent in 1937,0710,0.147. She identifies the first as an early impression and the second as a late one. Damage to the raised wood that prints a line leaves a gap in subsequent impressions. [3]
Follow the museum’s enlarged comparison, find that gap, then examine the title-box borders. Korenberg uses several damaged lines together to establish relative printing order. A paler blue alone is a different kind of evidence: it may reflect printing, ageing or photography.
We have not assigned an early or late state to the two Met sheets here. Follow Korenberg’s comparison of documented examples.
Making a print
A picture made through several hands
Hokusai designed the image. Producing a colour woodblock print also required carving and printing: the design was transferred to wood, the printable areas left raised, and the sheet brought into contact with inked blocks. Separate colour blocks had to meet in the intended positions. [5]
That process explains why “a Hokusai” need not mean a sheet personally painted by Hokusai. The design and each physical impression are related, but they are different things to describe.
Reading the title and signature
Return to the title-box details above. The museum title gives the series as Fugaku sanjūrokkei, or Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji, and the individual design as Kanagawa oki nami ura, or Under the Wave off Kanagawa. “The Great Wave” is the familiar alternative title. [9]
The signature sits beside the framed title. The Art Institute transcribes it as Hokusai aratame Iitsu fude and identifies the publisher as Nishimura-ya Yohachi. [9] The signature identifies the artist; the publisher identification belongs to the production history. It does not establish that Hokusai personally printed a particular sheet.
What does “original” mean here?
Korenberg’s research distinguishes original impressions from reproductions made using a different set of blocks. [3] A period impression and a later reproduction can show the same composition. Their similar appearance does not make them the same object.
This comparison is an aid to understanding the work, not a test for authenticating a print offered for sale.
Materials and evidence
Which blue are we looking at?
“Prussian blue” is only part of the answer. In the British Museum impression examined by Korenberg and Peter McElhinney, indigo was identified in the outlines, title box, signature and dark wave areas, while Prussian blue was identified in the medium blue. The 2017 article leaves the light blue unresolved pending further tests. [4]
Those findings describe the tested impression. They should not be silently transferred to the two Met sheets shown here. A screen image cannot identify a pigment.
The same study explains why viewing opportunities can be limited: light can damage the colourants in Japanese prints. [4] Museum ownership is therefore a different question from whether a sheet is on display today.
Place and interpretation
Can we put the boats on a map?
Ota Memorial Museum chief curator Kenji Hinohara connects “Kanagawa” to the historical post station and port, rather than treating the title as a reference to the whole modern prefecture. He explores a possible offshore viewpoint, but also raises problems with reading the boats’ direction literally. [7]
A geographical interpretation can help us ask better questions. It does not turn the print into a photograph taken from a verified coordinate. Any map accompanying this work should distinguish a documented place from a proposed viewpoint.
Common questions
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Is the Great Wave a tsunami?
A large storm wave is the more probable interpretation, according to Julyan H. E. Cartwright and Hisami Nakamura’s 2009 study. They compare the curling breaker with the behaviour of tsunamis, whose wavelengths are much longer. Their argument does not completely exclude a tsunami, and a print cannot establish the cause of a real wave. [8]
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Is Mount Fuji the subject, or the wave?
The work belongs to a series of views of Fuji. [1] Its composition makes us search for the mountain through the wave. Try looking first at Fuji, then first at the boats: the visual relationship remains the same, but your route through the image changes.
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Which version should I use when researching it?
Use a museum image with an accession number and retain that identification. Cite the design when discussing the composition, and the particular sheet when discussing measurements, condition or scientific analysis. Compare sources before assuming they describe the same object.
Prints by Katsushika Hokusai are available. View the collection →
