Interactive Maps of the Floating World

Katsushika Hokusai's 'The Great Wave off Kanagawa' is one of the most iconic pictures of all time. His famous woodblock print is just one of a series of prints of Mount Fuji from 'Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji'. In these prints Hokusai depicts Mount Fuji from many different locations and at different times of the year.

You can now place yourself in Hokusai's geta clogs using the Views of Mount Fuji interactive map. This map overlays seven of Hokusai's prints of Mount Fuji on top of the actual view as seen in ArcGIS Scene Viewer. The seven prints in Views of Mount Fuji includes The Great Wave of Kanagwa. It also includes the print 'Fine Wind, Clear Morning', which can be seen in the screen-grab above (also known as 'South Wind, Clear Sky' and 'Red Fuji').

The Great Wave of Kanagwa and hundreds of other Hokusai's prints can also be explored in detail on Google Arts and Culture.



Hokusai belonged to the school of ukiyo-e (pictures of the floating world) artists. Ukiyo-e is a genre of Japanese art which flourished from the 17th century through to the 19th century. Hokusai was one of the finest artists of the genre. Perhaps the only other ukiyo-e artist to rival Hokusai was Utagawa Hiroshige. Hiroshige is probably most well-known for his series of woodcut prints, such as The Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō, One Hundred Famous Views of Edo and Famous Views of the Sixty-odd Provinces.

You can view some of the views from these three series of prints on the Ukiyo-e Map. This interactive map has placed each Hiroshige print on the actual location depicted in Hiroshige's landscapes. If you select a marker on the map the image will open in a new tab or window.



You can also explore Hiroshige's One Hundred Famous Views of Edo in more detail on Google Arts and Culture. Google's presentation of Hiroshige's prints allows you to zoom in on each of the images. It also provides an introduction the painter, his influence and his printing techniques.

If you want to view Hiroshige's work in more detail the Chester Beatty Digtial Collections and the Wellcome Collection both own some of Hiroshige's woodcut prints which you can explore using their respective iiif image viewers.