Monday, October 01, 2007

Katsushika Hokusai's The Great Wave Off Kanagawa (1831)



From the New York City Metropolitan Museum of Art:
The Great Wave at Kanagawa (from a Series of Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji), Edo period (1615–1868), ca. 1830–32
Katsushika Hokusai (Japanese, 1760–1849)
Japan
Polychrome woodblock print; ink and color on paper; 10 1/8 x 14 15/16 in. (25.7 x 37.9 cm)
H. O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929 (JP1847)

Description

The preeminence of this print—said to have inspired both Debussy's "La Mer" and Rilke's "Der Berg"—can be attributed, in addition to its sheer graphic beauty, to the compelling force of the contrast between the wave and the mountain. The turbulent wave seems to tower above the viewer, whereas the tiny stable pyramid of Mount Fuji sits in the distance. The eternal mountain is envisioned in a single moment frozen in time. Hokusai characteristically cast a traditional theme in a novel interpretation. In the traditional "meisho-e" (scene of a famous place), Mount Fuji was always the focus of the composition. Hokusai inventively inverted this formula and positioned a small Mount Fuji within the midst of a thundering seascape. Foundering among the great waves are three boats thought to be barges conveying fish from the southern islands of Edo (modern Tokyo). Thus a scene of everyday labor is grafted onto the seascape view of the mountain.
Tools used:
  • Sect of Homokaasu's online The Rasterbator (creates PDF from source image)
  • 60 8.5"x11" foam-core boards (eBay)
  • 60 8.5"x11" Canon MP-101 matte photo paper sheets
  • Canon Pixma MP160 Multifunction Printer (used two color cartridges on this project)
  • 2,340" of 1/2" double-sided tape (holds photo paper to foam-core boards)
  • 60 foam-core board hangers (Abreu Gallery)
  • 60 picture nails & hammer
  • Ryobi AirGrip Laser Level
  • One roll of masking tape (holds foam-core boards in place on wall)
  • Rubbermaid 3-Step Project Ladder
UPDATE:



A pic with IKEA Sansa low-voltage halogen track lighting system.

8 comments:

Unknown said...

Cool...looks like alot of work. How did you have the patience to finish it?

iokevins said...

We worked on it on and off over the course of several weeks. It's one of those projects where we went in ignorant, learning as we went. Once we invested the $40 in the foam core boards, we had a financial incentive to motivate us. And again once we used about $60 of color inkjet cartridges to print the panel-sheets (two at ~$28). We invested about $125 total. We live next to an artist who appraised it at about $500. o_O We also felt confident the end product would look fantastic based on other images in the Rasterbator image gallery.

So, these motivations helped balance out the tedious nature of taping, measuring, marking, fixing foam-core hangers, and so forth. Not completely--I'm not sure I'd do it again so soon. Then again, I feel the satisfaction of completing a tedious job that (in my opinion) looks wonderful.

Hope that helps!

SomeKindaHate said...

That looks awesome! Any tips on using the rasterbator? What dot size did you use? I'd love to know. Thanks!

iokevins said...

Through experimentation, we found the best resolution by using 1mm dot size. This produced a 60-page PDF (if memory serves) around 512MB in size.

Hope this helps. If you have any other questions, comments, concerns, please let me know. If you choose to create something and are willing to share, I'd appreciate seeing your results.

Sail Ionian said...

how come you managed to get such a small dot size? i thought the minimum was 7mm

iokevins said...

Hi Geoff,

I downloaded the standalone Rasterbator program (1.21 at the time).

Configuration screen 4 of 5 ("Set Rasterbation Options") allows you to choose a dot size down from 1mm to 99999mm (although I think it seems to cap it at 500mm).

Peace

Unknown said...

Hi schultkl,

Just read through your post. Nice job on the artwork and the rasretbation! Just want to ask you for some advice:

I've been trying to raterbate my images using the Rasterbatopr software. I tried with 1mm dots, but somehow the colours turned out at a much higher contrast than the original. Can you help on this?\

Just some tips/help for my future wall posters!

Thanks!

iokevins said...

Hi jusuchin85,

Thanks for asking! Sorry, I do not know why the 1mm dots turned out at a higher contrast. If you find out, please share your knowledge. :)

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