A swell party

Almost two centuries after its creation, Hokusai's Great Wave print is more popular than ever, on everything from nail art to Lego to socks. What's behind its appeal?

- Paula Cocozza

You are never far from a great wave.

Its foaming crest froths and sputters like ghostly fingers or monstrous claws raking over tote bags and journals. You can probably find it miniaturised in your emoji keyboard on your phone, and fading on a mouse mat or pair of socks somewhere nearby. The image - officially known as Under the Wave off Kanagawa, from Katsushika Hokusai's series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji depicts small boats facing down a large wave, and almost two centuries after its creation its appeal spans generations, continents, and socioeconomic bands.

In 2023, a Great Wave print sold for a record $2.76m at Christie's in New York. The following year, in Japan, the image debuted on the new 1,000-yen banknote, the country's lowest-value paper money. You can equally well hang the wave from your keyring or apply its decals to your Porsche. British heritage companies such as Dartington Crystal sell it wrapped around fusty-looking vases, while at the edgier end of the high street, Urban Outfitters has printed it on to clothing. It is almost impossible to imagine where a Great Wave would look out of place. You can even buy it splashed across an umbrella. It must feel strange to keep dry under a great wave, but this artwork has become a catch-all image, the ultimate mixer of metaphors. The design itself-with its tiny Mount Fuji and vast wave - seems to give permission to play with scale.

Of course, the Great Wave was made to be reproduced.

It has never had a definitive form. Hokusai's original brush drawing would have been destroyed when the printers cut the woodblocks in 1831, and though no one knows exactly how many impressions from the original blocks still exist, it's thought to be about 100. No two prints could ever have been the same. Variation was built into its creation - yet somehow, the design itself retains, whatever its context, a sort of universal meaningfulness.