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Japanese Art

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Art History

The Mountain Almost Disappears

Everyone remembers the wave in Hokusai’s Under the Wave off Kanagawa, yet Mount Fuji may be the more curious detail. Japan’s enormous mountain is reduced to a small triangle beneath a temporary wall of water. Hokusai reverses the expected hierarchy: the permanent becomes tiny while a moment becomes monumental. The wave will collapse. Fuji will remain. The image makes us feel the opposite.

https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/45434

#Hokusai #JapaneseArt #WoodblockPrint #ArtHistory