All images: © The Trustees of the British Museum
Ase ries of large, fierce waves with white foam frothing at their edges: Under The Wave off Kanagawa (above, also known as The Great Wave Off Kanagawa) is one of the most famous and celebrated works of Japanese art. The striking painting is said to have inspired works such as Claude Debussy’s La Mer (The Sea) and German poet Rainer Maria Rilke’s Der Berg (The Mountain). Yet this image is only one of a large number of works created by the artist Katsushika Hokusai.