The Great Wave

A piece of art has really resonated with me recently is the painting The Great Wave Off Kanagawa by Hokusai. I’m not sure when or where I first noticed this piece, but it’s probably been some time in the past two or three years. I'm not even sure if I even really enjoyed it when I first noticed it. I have found myself enjoying it more and more, especially over the past year or two. I think it spoke to me initially after hearing the concept of emotions coming and going, like the peaks and troughs of waves. The wave in this work of art is huge, and you can tell that it’s probably going to cause a lot of destruction, but one day, the force generated by that wave will eventually be gone.

The Great Wave Off Kanagawa by Hokusai

I think what I had been seeing most of the time when I saw works featuring the Great Wave were actually other artists interpretations of this original artwork. I didn’t notice until recently when looking at the original art in a larger format that there are people in boats about to experience this wave. I can only imagine the terror that these tiny people were facing down. If they survive this wave, it's going to be a great story, though it will probably leave a long-term impact on them. Perhaps though, surviving this wave might provide them some valuable perspective for other challenges they might face in life.

Definitely not The Great Wave Off Kanagawa. The Great Wave of Coffee by Elan Harris.

My family bought me a large print of the original Great Wave Off Kanagawa painting for Christmas this year. I have really enjoyed it so far. We chose a small cozy section of our house to hang it in. My wife Jessie, the lone detail-oriented person in our family, hung it expertly over a desk and near a bookcase. It was perfectly level, and the exactly correct distance above the desk and between the adjacent wall and bookcase. Only, the desk wasn’t level, nor was the bookcase. However, it was the picture that really seemed off in this previously un-diagnosed corner of chaos. It wasn’t until we really dove into why the picture looked off that we realize the desk and the bookcase, once seemingly perfectly level, were actually horribly askew; this new photo giving us the perspective that was needed to see that everything else was in shambles. Maybe there’s a metaphor for life in there somewhere, or maybe we just shouldn’t buy furniture from Facebook marketplace.

Another work from Hokusai's Thirty-Six Views of Mt. Fuji. The Lake of Hakone in the Segami Province.

The print I received for Christmas came with a little description about the author and his work that has slowly become my favorite piece of art, at least in this current phase of life. Like most works of art, I have to be told what it is about and what I am actually seeing. I learned that this piece of art was the first in a series of works titled "Thirty-six views of Mount Fuji." I realized that I never actually noticed Mount Fuji in the background before. While this work of art captured the waves and the humans experiencing this intense event, it was really all about about the mountain. Big waves, small waves, Mount Fuji don’t care. Maybe we should find a way to care a little less about the waves in life, just like our good friend Mr. Fuji. Though, apathy towards waves is probably a lot easier when you are a mountain.

My own work of art. The working title is Descent into Hakone on a Gondola While a Child Holds a Large Stuffed Animal with Mount Fuji in the Background. You didn't even notice our old friend Mister Fuji back there, did you?