The Mona Lisa may be the most famous painting in the world, but every single person also has their own personal Mona Lisa, or even Mona Lisas: pieces of artwork so meaningful and profound to them that simply beholding them in person offers an experience that can never quite adequately be put into words.
No doubt, for many people, including some of the most famous artists throughout history, Katsushika Hokusai’s The Great Wave off Kanagawa is one of those works.
Created when the artist was in his seventies, The Great Wave forms part of Hokusai’s celebrated series, Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji, which ultimately comprises of 46 prints. Dulwich Picture Gallery brings together every single on of these in a remarkable exhibition, offering a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
They start strong with three impressions of The Great Wave off Kanagawa, accompanied by annotations that not only deepen the viewer’s appreciation of the master’s most seminal work, but also illuminates the deeply intricate and complex process of woodblock printing that has so thoroughly enraptured the world.
That Hokusai was already in his seventies when he created these works is itself a testament to the idea that, in life, no matter how much youth is paraded before us as the be-all and end-all, it truly isn’t over until you decide that it’s over. Equally pertinent and appreciated in the exhibition is the recognition (however brief) of Hokusai’s daughter, Ōi, and her contribution to his work.
What Dulwich Picture Gallery’s exhibition offers is not just a chronological journey through these 46 works (save for the very final piece) but rather a reflection on the extraordinary variety of subject matters, styles, techniques and perspectives Hokusai utilised to bring the world of Mount Fuji to life.
One section, for example, explores the use of aizuri-e, a printing technique employing shades of blue, including the beautiful Prussian blue that permeates so many of the prints. The way Hokusai utilises this colour is truly magical, fundamental to providing the series with its sense of serenity, calm, beauty and transcendence.
Elsewhere, we encounter Hokusai’s depictions of everyday life: the ordinary people who work, travel and exist beneath the shadow of Mount Fuji, giving the mountain the reverence she so deserves as she watches over the little humans scurrying about her feet.
This exhibition is clearly created with love. A map illustrates the approximate vantage points from which Hokusai depicted Mount Fuji, while an interactive stamp relay at the end invites visitors to create their own version of The Great Wave off Kanagawa. A small garden midway through the exhibition only serves to underline the sense of tranquillity that permeates and is encouraged throughout the experience.
What is particularly beautiful here is the recognition of the extraordinary legacy of Hokusai’s work. Long past what many would consider the prime of his life, the artist poured love and detail into capturing one of the world’s most iconic mountains, not simply through the majesty of the mountain itself, but through the colours, lives and stories that weave around this great monument crafted by nature.
It is a reminder that we live alongside giants that have not been built by human hands, and yet, through our own hands, artists are able to give them a life, a story, a tale and perhaps even a humanity that might otherwise have remained unseen.
Something consistently and profoundly moving without Hokusai’s work is this recognition of a symbiotic relationship between humanity and the natural world.
The richness of the colours and the precision of Hokusai’s cuts invite us to marvel at the sheer level of detail and intentionality within each print, while the exhibition’s thoughtful presentation encourages us to appreciate not simply the finished artwork, but the human endeavour behind its creation.
Indeed, this is an exhibition that, once you reach the end, you immediately want to experience all over again. And if one takes the leap it is certainly worth it, if only to retrace your steps and behold that Great Wave over and over and over, until eventually you have to let it go, just as one imagines Hokusai’s great wave must ultimately have released the human figures caught within its potentially deadly embrace.
Ultimately, Hokusai: Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji posesses extraordinary artistic and historical significance, but its greatest achievement may lie in its recognition and presentation of an artist who, in his later years, sought to celebrate the interconnected nature of the mountain he so clearly loved and the people he so carefully observed around it, the two elevating one another through their shared existence.
Thus there perhaps lies something rather hopeful in Hokusai’s work: not only for humanity and our relationship with the world around us, but for art itself and its enduring ability to help us see the extraordinary in what has always been there. To bask in it is to believe it.
Hokusai: Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji from the Iuchi Collection is on at the Dulwich Picture Gallery from the 20th of October to the 17th of January, 2026. Find out more here.
