Get curated editors’ picks, peeks behind the scenes, film recommendations and more.
Under the Wave off Kanagawa (or simply The Great Wave) by Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849) was instantly popular in Japan upon its first printing around 1830. In the decades since, the work has grown to become a global phenomenon, with reproductions ubiquitous on the internet and lining a great many suburban living-room walls. The UK art writer James Payne takes on Hokusai’s masterpiece in this instalment from his YouTube series, Great Art Explained. And, as he explores, there’s something quite apropos about the piece’s widespread popularity, given that woodblock printing was then a highly commercialised Japanese art form and that, with time, the piece came to symbolise the end of Japan’s isolationist Edo period (1603-1867). Examining Hokusai’s life, times and work in the context of art history, Payne provides a sharp analysis of why The Great Wave has become such a resounding artistic and commercial success.
Video by Great Art Explained
video
Physics
A song of ice, fire and jelly – exploring the physics and history of the trumpet
9 minutes
video
Architecture
Tour the European architecture that dreamed of a wondrous, fictitious China
16 minutes
video
Spirituality
Trek alongside spiritual pilgrims on a treacherous journey across Pakistan
6 minutes
video
Thinkers and theories
Photographs offer a colonialist window to the past – one that must be challenged
14 minutes
video
Animals and humans
An artist and ants collaborate on an exhibit of ‘tiny Abstract Expressionist paintings’
5 minutes
video
Mathematics
How a curious question about colouring maps changed mathematics forever
9 minutes
video
Meaning and the good life
The world turns vivid, strange and philosophical for one plane crash survivor
16 minutes
video
Cities
The rise and fall of Kowloon Walled City, Hong Kong’s infamous urban monolith
18 minutes
video
Art
Inside the unique creative space where ‘outsider’ artists find their form
14 minutes