Famous Japanese Prints by Hokusai

Hokusai was a truly inspiring artist who captured the Japanese countryside in an inventive and technically forward-thinking way which gave us art which is still very much loved today, many centuries after his career first made the headlines with in his native Japan. Hokusai is certainly best known for his classic, Great Wave off Kanagawa, which features swirling blocks of blues and whites to form a terrifying wave that makes its way across the painting. Although landscape art was popular with in Japan at that time it was less known with in Europe where allegorical and portraits very far more common and it is artists like Hokusai who helped to bring Japanese prints to the attention of the west, and also underline the qualities which can be found with in landscape paintings.
Hokusai features several key Japanese landscape locations with in his paintings, famously covering Mount Fuji in another work that marks amongst his most impressive contributions. Vincent van Gogh is an artist who was known to have been heavily influenced by Japanese artists during a period in his career and even went as far as producing several paintings with very obvious influences from his favourite Asian painters such as Hokusai. There are also other significant painters from Europe who took in influences from outside the continent, including Paul Gauguin from Tahiti.
Reproduction Japanese prints can currently very popular with in the west because of the great charm which exists in the best examples found with in this genre. There is also considerable interest in other "ethnic" art too from other regions such as with Mexican murals and also African art in general, particularly with so many westerners now having deep roots from some of these locations. The most common reproductions of Japanese art are made as prints, posters and paintings whilst stretched canvases are also common for the bolder style works such as Great Wave off Kanagawa.
It is very easy to conclude that prints like Great Wave off Kanagawa helped to take artist Hokusai right to the top of the Japanese art hall of fame and there are few artists to have achieved such a beautiful set of work that their paintings and prints are still much loved by so many people around the world, even today. It was his unique style which remains somewhat contemporary that explains why so many people continue to buy Great Wave off Kanagawa reproductions to add to their own homes or to give as a present to someone else.