That Hokusai’s great wave is taller than Mount Fuji rising in the distance across the Tokyo Bay is an optical illusion, a matter of artistic depth-of-field
Three slender boats filled with fishermen hoping to deliver their catch to market are about to be crushed by the wave. That wave is not an illusion. Their catch will be lost and so might they.
The boats are so small and low in the water, and the wave so imposing, that it is the wave I have always noticed, not the boats, not the men, until I read the gallery label on the museum wall, and then I notice these fragile creatures, and I feel dread.
Only then does that pretty, Prussian Blue wave get mean.
The sailors bow penitently towards the cresting wave, settling above the center of gravity of their shallow boats as any experienced boatman would do, skull-like heads lowered in perfect alignment.
No paddling, no frenzy, no panic.
Why this calm?
Are they resigned to their fate?
Do they revere the mighty wave, the impossible, frothy curve it makes like a monster’s fanged sneer?
Are they attempting to will it away?
Are they praying to survive its certain crash?
Awed and stunned, are they conserving the energy they will require properly to die?
Life is full of waves. Some make the passage rocky. Others threaten to swamp the boat, or worse. This picture invites you to respect the journey, to offer calm to pilgrims in other boats, on rougher seas.
Three versions of this wood-block print sometimes hang framed in a neat row at the Art Institute of Chicago. Because they are so fragile and so old, susceptible to the ravages of light and air, curators only infrequently display these prints.
Sightings of waves such as these are rare. Each print is the size of a dinner menu at a local chain restaurant, larger, but not by much, than an order of the broiled scallops and clams over asparagus risotto — ingredients those mariners might have been attempting to get to market before that wave crushed and scattered the brittle bones of their best intentions.
The Rev. Matt Matthews is co-pastor with his wife, Rachel, of the Waldensian Presbyterian Church in Valdese. He may be reached atmatt@waldpres.org.
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Keep it Clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd, racist or sexually-oriented language.
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