The Great Wave off Kanagawa by Hokusai is probably the most famous Japanese work of art:
It was a woodblock print first made in 1831. About 8000 copies were eventually printed, of which about 100 remain. The remaining copies are shockingly valuable now (one recently sold for almost 3 million), but their (relative) abundance means you can see an original in many galleries around the world. We’ve seen one in Japan, and another at The Met in NYC.
And here’s a LEGO kit I bought last week! It’s the second in their LEGO art series, which seeks to reproduce famous works of art in LEGO form (the first was The Starry Night by Van Gogh).
The set has over 1800 pieces, but a few hundred are small flat circles to make up the sky and clouds! You build it in six plates which then go together to form the full image. Here’s a shot before the 3D surface elements are added:
The ‘wave effects’ cleverly use white flower and bird pieces, and it makes a clever illusion of a frothing wave, especially from a distance:
Here’s a comparison between the original print and this set, showing Fuji and some of the fishermen:
About half of the finished piece is the frame (which is optional). All told it took me about five hours to finish, and while a very easy set, was enormously satisfying and relaxing to build. It looks beautiful complete:
It’s designed to be hung on a wall, which I intend to do, but it’s somewhat large and quite heavy so I need to think carefully as to where I’ll place it. I like this even more than I expected I would. I wonder what art sets LEGO will make in the future?