What if we’ve been reading the most famous print in the world all wrong? Under the Wave off Kanagawa, popularly known as “The Great Wave," by Katsushika Hokusai is one of the most recognizable and famous Japanese woodblock print images in the world today, but is the focus of this print really the great wave?

Main image:

Under the Wave Off Kanagawa, Katsushika Hokusai, multi-color woodblock print, 19th century, Japan. Boston Museum of Fine Arts