The Great Wave off Kanagawa

The great wave filling the left half of the picture has its crest split into fine claw-like fingers, scattering white spray. Beneath it, the rowers clinging to their long, slender boats can do nothing but crouch down. Fuji is placed small in the hollow of the wave. The viewer is made to stand at a point just above the surface of the sea, looking up at the great wave.

The boats are called oshiokuri-bune, boats that carried fish and vegetables to Edo from places such as Boso. The "off Kanagawa" of the title refers to Edo Bay (Tokyo Bay), which spreads out beyond the Kanagawa post station on the Tokaido. Since the medieval period, Edo Bay had harbors such as Shinagawa, Kanagawa, and Mutsuura, and fishing boats and coastal cargo ships from many regions came and went busily.

As for the viewpoint, one theory holds that Fuji is seen to the west from off Kisarazu, across the bay. With its clear contrasts between motion and stillness and near and far, this print became known abroad early on. Explanations by the Yamanashi Prefectural Museum and the Edo-Tokyo Museum mention that the painter van Gogh praised it warmly in his letters and that the composer Debussy drew inspiration from it for "La Mer."