Katsushika Hokusai: The Great Wave off Kanagawa (Under the Wave off Kanagawa)

The Great Wave off Kanagawa Created during Japan's Edo period, Hokusai's iconic woodblock print revolutionized how the world perceived Japanese art and landscape imagery. The composition's dramatic perspective—with the towering wave dominating the foreground and Mount Fuji reduced to a distant peak—defied Western artistic conventions and profoundly influenced Impressionist painters who encountered it in the mid-19th century. This print remains one of the most recognizable works in art history, celebrated for its masterful use of Prussian blue pigment and its bold reimagining of nature's power.