Just in case people aren't aware the article is to promote that the Art Institute of Chicago have one of their three prints of The Great Wave on view for the first time in 5 years. (I suspect they'll rotate through all 3 prints over the next few months to minimise how much each one is in light).
Things to know about the Great Wave
81–90 of 93 posts
Re: Things to know about the Great Wave
#82Wow! 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…
My eyes first see the large wave in both photos.
Re: Things to know about the Great Wave
#83Wow! 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 don't feel any difference in both the images.
Re: Things to know about the Great Wave
#84There is a very good multi part video about creating a facsimile of the print on YouTube https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jAhiMCSvtCc
I own his version of the Great Wave print, it's fabulous. I also recommend watching the playlist on YouTube to get a better understanding of how these prints are made as the article linked does not really explain or show you anything about the print making itself.
Re: Things to know about the Great Wave
#85Earlier 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.
The parent post didn't say it's not present. In fact it's at the 26th place. So the ranking does not exclude non-paintings.
Re: Things to know about the Great Wave
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wow, I didn't know that! I thought vertical text was a thing of the past. Interesting.
I own a bunch of novels in Japanese, and every single one is vertically-written. Same with all the comic books I own. I think maybe a couple children's manga I had years ago were horizontally-written, but we're talking something I haven't laid eyes on in decades, so I might be mis-remembering.
If you want to try a horizontal text layout novel for some reason, "私小説―from left to right" is one. It's a deliberate choice because it's a semi autobiographical novel about the author's life as a bilingual Japanese and English speaker growing up in the US. The text is peppered with English words and fragments of dialogue to try to convey some of the bilingual experience.
That is the only one I've encountered though.
Re: Things to know about the Great Wave
#87Wow! 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…
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.
Even manga translated into English is right-to-left with the first page (in English) scolding you for opening the book at the back, and telling you how to follow the text.
Also fans of some manga (especially One Piece?) will talk about how the comics will make use of this sense of right to left, with subtle timing, action, or causality often being from right to left (if Star Wars was a manga, Han would shoot from the right of the frame).
Re: Things to know about the Great Wave
#88I love the Great Wave and have spent a lot of time trying to get my laser engraver to make a good image of it. The entire series is excellent.
If you enjoy his work, I highly recommend checking out some of this others, such as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dream_of_the_Fisherman%27s...
Re: Things to know about the Great Wave
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I’m not native, but have read and spoken Japanese fluently for almost twenty years. I still can’t get used to and hate vertical text. Maybe it’s because 99% of my Japanese context is business-related or on devices (computer, phone) and I don’t read novels, manga, etc.
Ah, yeah, my main motivation is reading light novels, and I've actually read a few really easy ones. I've also read manga, but it's hard to find any that I like that are also at my level.
I'm not sure how I'd feel if the vast majority of my usage had been horizontal instead.
Re: Things to know about the Great Wave
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, both the Met and the Art Institute of Chicago disagree with you on that. One thing that'll throw you off, mentioned in the article: the Wave isn't a painting, and if you look for artwork rankings (it's the Internet, of course these exist) they tend to rank paintings. The Waves at the Art Institute aren't their most iconic, popular pieces; that honor probably goes to Seurat's Sunday Afternoon. I should get back…
> The Waves at the Art Institute aren't their most iconic, popular pieces; that honor probably goes to Seurat's Sunday Afternoon. Well, there's only one Sunday Afternoon, but if you have a few thousand dollars, you, too, can own an original Waves, since there's no such thing as "the" original when you're talking about collecting prints. Much like there isn't a "one" Warhol soup can painting. These artists' works were…
There's a large number of bootleg Hokusai ripoffs - back in the early 1800s there were woodblock shops turning out near-exact copies, and some museums have discovered their prints are knockoffs.