"Ideally I would spend a whole year on a freighter watching the waves. If God himself, in honour of my 60th birthday, would give me the strength and the power and the glory, now and forever, to draw a beautiful wave. But no, nothing like that. As soon as I got home I tried it, to no avail. I started spirals instead. That at least gave me something to go on. Drawing waves—those apparently shapeless, chaotic glories—is something I will have to leave to you and your (almost ex-)compatriots."
Found a copy of the book on Wikimedia. It was originaly published as a pattern book for kimono textile, then rediscovered in 1986 in a collection at the Boston Museum. Since then art historians in Japan found further prints.
They seem to have reversed how Japanese books flip.
Is there a way for non-Japanese speakers to experience this?
It's mostly pictures and not much text, except for the initial popup you see which is the usual cookie consent prompt (left button = minimum required, right button = agree to all). But looks like British Museum also has this book if you want an English interface:
If you are asking about the text written on the pages themselves, it takes a bit more effort unless you are familiar with archaic script. I can make out some of them as guidelines on how to draw the patterns.
There is a i18n “English” button on top right. Unless you meant something else.
Escher invoking Hokusai in his sixties
"Ideally I would spend a whole year on a freighter watching the waves. If God himself, in honour of my 60th birthday, would give me the strength and the power and the glory, now and forever, to draw a beautiful wave. But no, nothing like that. As soon as I got home I tried it, to no avail. I started spirals instead. That at least gave me something to go on. Drawing waves—those apparently shapeless, chaotic glories—is something I will have to leave to you and your (almost ex-)compatriots."
https://escherinhetpaleis.nl/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fp...
Found a copy of the book on Wikimedia. It was originaly published as a pattern book for kimono textile, then rediscovered in 1986 in a collection at the Boston Museum. Since then art historians in Japan found further prints.
北斎模様画譜 (1884) - Hokusai Pattern Book - https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File%3ANDL85...
You can download a full resolution pdf of the book at the original posts’s link, which is much better quality than the one on Wikimedia.
I used safari’s built in translate feature to translate the page from Japanese to English, scroll down for download options.
Could you check the URL ? I think something broke during the copy and paste
This seems to work
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File%3ANDL85...
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:NDL8546...
Oops, I think it's fixed now. (;
They seem to have reversed how Japanese books flip.
Is there a way for non-Japanese speakers to experience this?
It's mostly pictures and not much text, except for the initial popup you see which is the usual cookie consent prompt (left button = minimum required, right button = agree to all). But looks like British Museum also has this book if you want an English interface:
https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/A_1973-0723-...
If you are asking about the text written on the pages themselves, it takes a bit more effort unless you are familiar with archaic script. I can make out some of them as guidelines on how to draw the patterns.
There is a i18n “English” button on top right. Unless you meant something else.
I used google translate.
See also:
https://ndlsearch.ndl.go.jp/en/imagebank/theme/hokusaimoyo
Hokusai Moyo Gafu: an album of dyeing patterns (ndl.go.jp) 170 points by fanf2 10 months ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44224992
Ah! This HN post must have been where I had seen this first. Thanks for the comment.
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