Hokusai Group Work Poster - The Great Wave of Kanagawa

A stunning teamwork poster for your classroom that inspires your kids to work together!

‘The Great Wave of Kanagawa’ is probably the most famous Japanese artwork in the world. It’s not a painting but rather a woodcut print – a technique that’s done using woodworking tools to remove areas that aren’t going to be printed from a smoothly-planed wooden board. The remaining raised parts are then inked up and printed.

Katsushika Hokusai (1760 - 1849) is one of the most important Japanese painters. ‘The Great Wave of Kanagawa’ is from a cycle of 36 woodcuts depicting one aspect of Mount Fuji - Japan’s highest mountain - during the different seasons. Mount Fuji, which is also known as Fujiyama, is a volcano that has been considered sacred for hundreds of years.

Hokusai lived as a wandering artist in constant poverty and was sometimes forced to sell his pictures on the street. During his almost ninety years he obsessively drew everything he laid his eyes on. He called these masterful sketches and drawings ‘manga’ – a term that’s used today in a very general way for Japanese comics. In contrast to today’s comic strips, his ‘manga’ weren’t narrative stories but rather depictions of the lives of ordinary people of the time. For centuries Japan was almost completely sealed off from the rest of the world. A few Hokusai pictures reached Europe, though, and these really inspired artists like Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, Egon Schiele, and Gustav Klimt. They also had a great influence on Europe’s Art Noveau movement. During his lifetime, the master of the great wave modestly referred to himself as a ‘farmhand’.

Contains the following:

• Mini painting (9.7 x 6.5 in)
• Group work poster (47 x 31.5 in)