Woodblock Prints

A towering wave curls like a claw, three boats dive beneath the foam, and far behind, tiny, sits Mount Fuji. A Japanese woodblock print poster gives a wall a kind of elegance that never dates: flat colour, crisp lines and two centuries of history behind every motif.

Ukiyo-e: pictures of the floating world

Ukiyo-e means "pictures of the floating world". In the Edo period these woodblock prints celebrated the passing pleasures of city life: theatre, festivals, beautiful landscapes. They were printed in editions, one colour at a time, from hand-carved wooden blocks.

Two names tower over the rest. Around 1830–32 Hokusai published Under the Wave off Kanagawa as part of his Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji. That is the Great Wave, and its blues include Prussian blue, a pigment imported from Europe that was in high demand at the time. Late in life, Hiroshige produced One Hundred Famous Views of Edo, the old name for Tokyo; his compositions inspired European painters, Van Gogh among them.

Modern anime owes a lot to this style. Stylised waves, drifting cherry petals and gradient skies often trace back here.

One print or a full panorama

For a desk or bedroom, a single wave print is enough to give the room character, especially on a white or cream wall. If you have a big living-room wall, the same kind of scene can spread over four posters side by side with 3 cm gaps, like a giant print hanging above the sofa.

Deep blues and paper-cream tones love natural wood, rattan and daylight. They also echo the blue and white of Sidi Bou Said, which is why a Japanese print looks so at home in Tunisia. For a softer note, a print with pink cherry petals sits happily beside the wave.

One wave, one mountain, and your wall reaches back two hundred years.