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Things to know about the Great Wave

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Re: Things to know about the Great Wave

#71

Post by roenxi »

wccrawford wrote: post #23
cubefox wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, I didn't know that! I thought vertical text was a thing of the past. Interesting.

I'm probably lower-intermediate at Japanese, so take this with a grain of salt. I find that reading vertical text feels better, even though I first learned to read horizontal text. I don't know if this is all in my mind, or it really does have some appeal to it, though.

A typical eye is stronger at up-down motion and weaker at left-right motion. That comes up sometimes when adding rules (guidelines) to tables.

Re: Things to know about the Great Wave

#72

Post by Tepix »

radpanda wrote: post #35
perihelions wrote: post #30

- "Japanese woodblock prints are particularly affected by exposure to light that can fade their colors and damage the paper they’re printed on. “It’s always a balancing act between wanting to show works like The Great Wave so that our visitors have a chance to experience them and preserving these works for the future,” Katz says. “We work closely with our conservators to set the parameters for the display of works on…

I’d imagine somewhere there’s an engineer-artist putting such a print in a brightly lit locked box, which is programmed not to open until the interior light has shined long enough to eradicate the image on the print. (No idea if we have circuitry and LEDs that last long enough to make such a thing feasible).

Use thermopaper. Problem solved

Re: Things to know about the Great Wave

#73

Post by edanm »

litenboll wrote: post #24
kaycebasques wrote: post #2

Wow! Never thought about it like this before: > Because Japanese text is read from right to left, the earliest viewers of The Great Wave would have likely read the print that way too, first encountering the boaters and then meeting the great claw of water about to swallow them. So instead of riding along with the gargantuan wave as you might in a left-to-right reading, they would face right into the massive wall of o…

I feel really dumb, but I have never even noticed the boats. In the reversed I see them very clearly, but in the original the wave is completely dominating the view (now I see the boats of course, but my focus is completely on the wave by default).

This happened to me too! I'm not sure if it's the left-to-right thing though, that sounds a bit unlikely to me. Specifically that it's tied to the language we use. (For the record I probably default to reading left-to-right, though I also read and write in Hebrew which is RTL.)

Re: Things to know about the Great Wave

#74

Post by mbg721 »

kinj28 wrote: post #58
AnonHP wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Historical Japanese text, written vertically, is read top to bottom and right to left (like in those prints). On the other hand, more modern text (including what’s more common now) is read left to right when written horizontally. There are some more variations on directionality. Nevertheless, the picture does look and convey a different impression when flipped.

I wonder the logic and even history of why right to left came into being. Is there any benefit in choosing a directionality of one vs another. One thing that comes to my mind- book binding is done on the left edge of the book/news paper. So if folds are created you would go read left paper first and then to the right. Now if you are parsing left to right at higher level- At lower level wouldn’t it become consistency…

Boustrophedon (alternating left-to-right and right-to-left) was used sometimes in ancient Greek, so that your eyes didn't have to jump to the beginning of the next line.

Re: Things to know about the Great Wave

#75

Post by msephton »

plasma_beam wrote: post #51
litenboll wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel really dumb, but I have never even noticed the boats. In the reversed I see them very clearly, but in the original the wave is completely dominating the view (now I see the boats of course, but my focus is completely on the wave by default).

Even dumber, I never noticed Mt. Fuji was in the pic, focus was truly on the wave.

In some prints Fuji is coloured to look like a small wave (my personal preference) but in later prints is coloured differently to stand out.

Re: Things to know about the Great Wave

#76

Post by msephton »

layer8 wrote: post #34

Another thing to know is that the prints aren’t all the same: https://www.britishmuseum.org/blog/great-wave-spot-differenc... Also, here’s a nice Lego version: https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2020/12/jumpei-mitsui-great-w...

This is mentioned in the article. Art Institute of Chicago have 3 prints and show them next to each other so we can see the differences.

Re: Things to know about the Great Wave

#77

Post by msephton »

hiisukun wrote: post #55

One thing that strikes me about this work, and Hokusai's other very popular wood block prints, is that he was a total perfectionist. He would get things juuuust right, with the colour and the production process, with each copy made, then score/scratch the original so further prints could not be made to a different fashion/standard. For him to be alive and see bright and garish "Great wave" socks, jumpers, room rugs,…

Hokusai only drew the original sketch as a watercolour. A team of other people did the carving, colouring, printing all overseen by the publisher.

Re: Things to know about the Great Wave

#78

Post by msephton »

smitty1e wrote: post #29

My claim to fame in life is having hauled a highland bagpipe up Mt. Fuji and blown "Amazing Grace" at the summit. Which is a terrible idea. The air pressure at that altitude does not support driving four reeds, especially through a splitting headache.

Well done, though!

Re: Things to know about the Great Wave

#79

Post by msephton »

teo_zero wrote: post #20

> If not the most famous artwork in the world Wait, what?? Am I the only one who thinks this sentence is off by an order of magnitude? I'd bet that the Great Wave is not even one of the 10 most famous. Unfortunately I have no evidence to support my statement...

I think the Great Wave would be high on the most recognisable chart.

Re: Things to know about the Great Wave

#80

Post by msephton »

teractiveodular wrote: post #26
gus_massa wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In https://www.google.com/search?q=famous+artwork I got it at the 26th position. The search gives a few lists, but all of them feel western-biased.

The results are almost all ranking paintings, and the Great Wave is not a painting.

Exactly this.
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