Art in Ads · 01

There's a Wave in Your Wallet

Flip over a Japanese banknote and a wave more than 190 years old comes crashing toward you.

Katsushika Hokusai, Under the Wave off Kanagawa (Kanagawa oki nami ura), also known as The Great Wave, from the series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku sanjūrokkei), ca. 1830–32

Under the Wave off Kanagawa (Kanagawa oki nami ura), also known as The Great Wave, from the series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku sanjūrokkei)

Katsushika Hokusaica. 1830–32

01Where you've seen it

In July 2024, Japan put out its first new banknotes in 20 years. The back of the 1,000-yen note carries this very wave. A few years earlier, from 2020, Japanese passports began printing Hokusai's Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji on their inside pages.

And that is just the wallet and the passport. Mugs, socks, phone cases, surf shop signs. That white crest, splitting into claw-like fingers, is easy to spot anywhere.

02The real story

This is not a single painting made with a brush. It is a woodblock print. Hokusai published it around 1830 to 1832, when he was about seventy, as one sheet in a series. The same blocks printed many copies for sale, so many museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, each own one.

The series is called Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji. So the star is not the wave but the small mountain far below it. Under the wave are three boats with rowers crouched low. That bright blue is Prussian blue, a Western pigment that had recently reached Japan.

Tell a friend like this

You know that famous wave? The real star is the tiny Mount Fuji sitting way in the back.

One line is enough.
Next time that painting shows up, your friend will spot it first.

See this painting up close →