Hokusai beyond the great wave

If you like Japanese iconography, you will undoubtedly know the work The great wave of Kanagawa since it is the best known work of Katsushika Hokusai and the first of his famous series Thirty-six views of Mt. Fuji. The image depicts a storm at sea when a wave is about to hit the sailors' boat, while Mount Fuji can be seen in the background.

Over seven decades, Katsushika Hokusai produced a staggering 30,000 drawings, paintings and prints.

His most famous work would be published in his 70s, when he began publishing his most famous series of landscape woodcuts, including the iconic The Great Wave of Kanagawa. His works influenced far beyond Japan, inspiring many renowned Western artists, including Edouard Manet, Claude Monet and Vincent Van Gogh.

The bourgeoisie encouraged the production of serial prints engraved on wooden plates.

In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the Japanese bourgeoisie promoted the production of mass-produced prints, known as Ukiyo-e from Edo period or "Paintings of the floating world". The works were usually engraved on cherry wood plates and the printer could make copies of the original until the relief engraved on the wood began to fade. They had a lower cost than an original painting, allowing the incipient Japanese bourgeoisie to buy them. 

Hokusai stood out for his elegant curves that evolved into spirals giving an even greater elegance and spontaneity to his drawings.

Although the Japanese author would become the greatest exponent of the Ukiyo-e school for his landscapes, his main subjects also included portraits of geisha, actors of the kabuki theater and samurai, who appeared in both erotic and humorous scenes.

In the repository of Rawpixel you can find the works in the public domain by Hokusai with relevant information about each work. In this repository you can download the works for free as high resolution printable files.