What it is
A towering wave curls over three fishing boats, and in the distance, small and calm, Mount Fuji sits at its centre.
What it represents
Impermanence and steadiness together. The wave looks like claws; the mountain does not move.
The symbolism
The print comes from Hokusai's series on Mount Fuji. The boatmen, bent low over their oars, are not defeated; they are working with the wave. What looks like a threat is a rhythm, and the stillness at the centre of the image is where you are meant to look.
Poems and letters beside it
poem
Crossing the Bar
Alfred Lord Tennyson (1889)
A calm farewell at the turn of the tide. Hokusai's mountain stays still in the centre while the wave breaks around it.
