Northeast Corner of Wabash and LaFontaine Ave.

The Great Wave off Kanagawa, Katsushika Hokusai 葛飾 北斎, 1832.

Medium: Color Woodblock Print

Style: Edo Period

This piece is Hokusai's most famous from his Japanese woodblock series called "Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji". Hokusai cleverly played with perspective to make Japan's grandest mountain appear as just a small triangular mound within the hollow of the cresting wave.

It may look like a painting, but this is actually a woodblock print, meaning the artist chiseled away at a piece of wood until they had the desired image. They then applied paint or ink to the block and pressed it onto paper like a stamp. This is done with several different blocks to achieve a full, layered painting.