The Painter's Colors

Katsushika Hokusai

Under the Wave off Kanagawa (The Great Wave)

about 1830–32

Woodblock print; ink and color on paper, 25.7 × 37.9 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

The museum's record names a palette of indigo and imported Prussian blue, which probably reached Japan in the early 1800s.

• Marco Leona, a Met scientist, argues that its strong, saturated blue helped make landscape prints popular.
• Tests on other Met impressions found the blue outlines mix Prussian blue with indigo.
• Despite cyanide in its structure, Prussian blue is safe enough to be an approved drug for removing radioactive cesium.

Concepts

• Blues

Image: Wikimedia Commons · Public domain (PD-Art)