Gold & Ink · Two-panel folding screen · Ogata Kōrin, c. 1704–09
Rough Waves
Waves with claws, a century before Hokusai.
The Work
Ink-blue waves surge across a two-panel gold screen — startlingly powerful from the same hand as the Irises.
Look Closer
The crests curl like claws, one swirl calling the next. It shows not the sea itself, but the force of the sea.
The Artist
Around 1704, Kōrin spent several years in Edo. This screen is thought to date from that stay.
The Artist
Kōrin studied Sōtatsu closely, but these waves may owe more to the 16th-century monk-painter Sesson.
Japan at the Time
In 1707 Mount Fuji erupted in the Hōei eruption, and ash fell on Edo.
Culture & Values
For Japanese painters, water and waves were the ultimate test: giving form to something formless.
Meanwhile, in the World
In 1704, in England, Isaac Newton published his Opticks, on the nature of light.
Afterward
About 120 years later, Hokusai painted his Great Wave with claw-like crests. Japan's lineage of waves runs on.
Listen while you look
This work stays on screen for about ten minutes in the full hour of Gold & Ink, with Rough Waves On Gold and Claws Of The Sea.
Take this print home
Printed to order and shipped worldwide.
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