The Wave, from "L'Estampe Originale"

Henri Gustave Jossot French
 Publisher André Marty French

On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 690

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.

The Wave, from "L'Estampe Originale", Henri Gustave Jossot (French, Dijon 1866–1951 Sidi Bou Said), Lithograph printed in olive green

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