Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2015. xv, 256 pp. (Illustrations.) US$20.00, paper. ISBN 978-0-8248-3960-4.
Christine Guth’s study of the print officially titled “Under the Wave off Kanagawa,” or Kanagawa oki no namiura, now commonly known as “The Great Wave,” explores how this image travelled in time and space from 1831, Edo, Japan, to so many parts of the world, being reconfigured and reworked by artists all over the world in so many media. So what can this example teach us about the process of global cultural socialization?
Drawing on art history and the history of design, anthropology, sociology, and media studies, Guth answers questions, such as what defines an icon and what does globalization mean, while also exploring the biography of the print and how it first travelled on the waves of Japonisme, and later became the eye-catcher in publications and exhibition catalogues on Hokusai—who happened to be the designer of the original print—and again, more recently in national antagonism, as well as in media such as manga, anime, and the Internet. It may be added here that the first Japanese monograph on Katsushika Hokusai (Iijima Kyoshin, Katsushika Hokusai den, 2 vols., Tokyo: Hōsūkaku, 1893) makes no mention of The Wave, whereas the first Western monograph study of the artist (Edmond de Goncourt, Hokousaï, Paris, 1896) that mostly describes prints in just one or two lines, devotes ten lines to The Wave (166, cited by Guth on 81f.), as it also does for South Wind at Clear Dawn from the same series of prints (163f.) (note that De Goncourt would also devote nine lines to Hokusai’s second-best-known design, the plate of Octopuses and a diver woman in the album Kinoe no komatsu [175]).
In chapter 1, Guth examines the popularity of The Wave from about 1831 to the 1860s. It opens with the statement that “[i]n 1830 the publication of a series of Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji by the artist Hokusai was announced in the back of a collection of stories by Ryūtei Tanehiko” (17). In fact, this announcement appeared in a novel issued in the first month of Tenpō 2, that is February of the year 1831 in the Western calendar. On page 26, she then asserts, in keeping with Henry D. Smith II, that “five monochrome blue prints, including views of Mount Fuji from Shichirigahama and Tsukudajima … had already been issued,” and then a “next group of five, still featuring blue outlines but with a more varied palette, appeared at the New Year of 1831, including ‘Under the Wave off Kanagawa,’ ‘South Wind, Clear Dawn’ … and ‘Rainstorm beneath the Summit … .’ ” Yet, these three designs are all signed “Hokusai changing his name to Iitsu,” whereas the five (actually ten) designs printed in tones of blue exclusively bear the signature “by Iitsu, formerly Hokusai”—just like all other prints issued in the series until 1833, suggesting just the reverse.
Guth appears to have done insufficient research, or relies too heavily on secondary sources without addressing the various contradictions between them. As for Hokusai’s precursors, it may be true that Minsetsu’s book Hyaku Fuji, (1771) had “only limited circulation” (19), yet, there is a reprint dated 1818. Moreover, there is also the Kyōka Fujisan of 1814, with illustrations by Tanba Tōkei, and certainly known to Hokusai, as well as some 31 views of Mt. Fuji by Ōishi Shūga in his Sannō shinkei of 1822, also known in various editions. And then, we shouldn’t forget that Hokusai already had incorporated a few first drafts of his Fuji prints in his Hokusai manga volumes of 1814–1819. Citing the case of the “projected series of One Hundred Poems as Told by the Nurse, of which only ninety-one of a promised hundred appeared” to substantiate her remark that “the publisher would likely have discontinued” publication “had the Fuji series not found public favor,” is hardly convincing. The truth is that only 27 prints came out during Hokusai’s lifetime, and that Nishimuraya, facing bankruptcy, was obliged to sell the blocks. Yes, this was the Tenpō crisis, also hitting the world of prints and books. So let’s move on to the following chapters.
In chapter 2, Guth presents a fascinating overview of how The Wave rolled over Europe after its first discovery in 1883 (67), aided by an earlier and more direct appreciation of the Hokusai mangavolumes and the One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji, from the 1850s or 1860s, eventually leading to the canonization of The Wave. Hokusai’s designs appealed to many, often for totally opposite reasons: see the views of Bing and De Goncourt (84f.), or how Henri Rivière’s series of Thirty-Six Views of the Eiffel Tower (1888–1902) helped rescue this structure from its scheduled demolition in 1909. The wide appreciation of The Wave, seen in prints, paintings, and even in Royal Copenhagen plates, also gave rise to an “indigo-mania.” However, it seems questionable whether De Goncourt’s “biography was as much about the writer as the artist” as it “does not contain a single illustration” (81)—this was simply part of a series of projected monographs on Japanese artists, such as Utamaro (1891), Hokusai (1896), Kōrin and Gakutei.
In chapter 3, Guth explores how The Wave, and Japanese prints in general, came to be appreciated and collected in America, where it would play a much more diverse role in all kinds of various discourses than was the case in Europe. As this quality came to be recognized in America, this also gave rise to a more recent answer, or reaction, in Japan itself. Indeed, it would be used to both express and contest narratives of race and nation.
In the following chapters, Guth presents a comprehensive view of The Wave’s most recent afterlife: how it came to be suitable at a variety of social levels, such as symbolizing environmental sensitivity; how its distinctive silhouette, even if altered or rendered in simplified linear form, would be recognized, serving whatever an international lexicon demanded; indeed, how The Wave became canonized and iconized. Guth’s study of how this 1830 Japanese print became a very meaningful image, as it remains today and no doubt for many years to come, is more than a fascinating study of one of today’s icons, seen from many various viewpoints, it is also a study in international cultural history.
Matthi Forrer
National Museum of Ethnology, Leiden, Netherlands
pp. 665-667