The Wave

André Marty|Henri Gustave Jossot

1894 · Lithograph printed in olive green on laid paper · Drawings and Prints

Caricaturist and poster designer Jossot contributed this print to the avant-garde portfolio "L’Estampe originale" (1893–95). His composition pokes fun at the craze over Japanese art among artists and collectors at the time, known as Japonisme. Here, in a parody of Hokusai’s "Great Wave," an immense swell knocks a painter along with his easel and canvas out of a boat. The work satirizes compositional devices commonly adopted by Japoniste artists, such as a plunging perspective and radical cropping, by toppling the figure from the boat and cutting off his upper body with the lower edge of picture plane.

Artist

André Marty|Henri Gustave Jossot

Date

1894

Medium

Lithograph printed in olive green on laid paper

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

Rogers Fund, 1922