Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849) was a Japanese ukiyo-e artist of the Edo period whose polychrome woodblock print Under the Wave off Kanagawa, from the series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, is a required work in AP Art History Unit 8 (South, East, and Southeast Asia).
Katsushika Hokusai was a printmaker working in Edo-period Japan, the era when a booming urban merchant class created huge demand for affordable art. He worked in ukiyo-e, which translates to "pictures of the floating world." These were woodblock prints of entertainment, landscapes, and everyday pleasures, carved into blocks and printed by the thousands so ordinary people could buy them cheaply.
His most famous project is the series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, which treats Japan's sacred mountain as a recurring anchor seen from different angles and distances. The series includes Under the Wave off Kanagawa (often called The Great Wave), the polychrome woodblock print on the AP 250 required works list. Notice the cross-cultural detail in it. Hokusai used Prussian blue, a synthetic pigment imported through European trade, in a quintessentially Japanese art form. Trade flowed the other way too, because his prints later flooded into Europe and changed how Western artists composed images.
Hokusai lives in Topic 8.5, Unit 8 Required Works, because Under the Wave off Kanagawa (c. 1830-1833) is one of the works you must be able to identify by artist, date, materials, and context. He is one of the few named artists in Unit 8, where most required works are anonymous or attributed to workshops, so his name is a likely answer choice on identification questions. He also serves the course's big theme of cultural interaction. The print uses imported European pigment, and the print tradition he mastered later fueled Japonisme in 19th-century Europe, linking Unit 8 directly to the modern art story in Unit 4. The 2023 SAQ even used a different Hokusai print from the same series as a stimulus, which tells you the exam expects you to know his style and process beyond one memorized image.
Keep studying AP Art History Unit 8
Ukiyo-e and Woodblock Printing (Unit 8)
Hokusai is the exam's go-to example of ukiyo-e. The medium matters as much as the image, because a woodblock print is mass-produced and affordable, made for merchants and townspeople rather than aristocrats. If a question asks about audience or function for The Great Wave, the answer starts with the printing process.
Edo Period (Unit 8)
The Edo period gave Hokusai his market. Japan's government limited foreign contact and a wealthy urban culture grew in cities like Edo (modern Tokyo), creating buyers for cheap, beautiful prints of the "floating world." Hokusai's career is basically Edo urban culture in art form.
Japonisme and Mary Cassatt's The Coiffure (Unit 4)
When Japan opened to trade in the mid-1800s, ukiyo-e prints poured into Europe and stunned artists with their flat color, cropped compositions, and bold outlines. Required Unit 4 works like Cassatt's The Coiffure borrow directly from this look. Hokusai is your evidence for cross-cultural influence flowing from Asia to the West, not just the other way.
Chairman Mao en Route to Anyuan (Unit 8)
Both works show what mass reproduction does to art's reach. Hokusai's prints sold by the thousands to city dwellers; the Mao image was reproduced over 900 million times as propaganda. Comparing them lets you argue about how printing changes who art is for.
Expect Hokusai in identification-style multiple choice. A typical stem shows the print or describes it and asks for the artist, medium (polychrome woodblock print, ink and color on paper), period, or original audience. The 2023 SAQ went a step further, using Ejiri in Suruga Province, a different print from Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, as the stimulus. That is the attribution skill in action. You have to recognize Hokusai's style (Fuji as anchor, dynamic natural forces, flat planes of color) in a work you have never studied and justify the connection with specific visual evidence. For essays, he is strong evidence for cross-cultural exchange (Prussian blue pigment, Japonisme) and for how a work's medium shapes its function and audience.
Hokusai and Hiroshige were both Edo-period ukiyo-e landscape printmakers, and they blur together fast. Hokusai made Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, including The Great Wave; Hiroshige made series like Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido. Only Hokusai's Under the Wave off Kanagawa is on the AP required works list, so if the question involves a required work, the answer is Hokusai.
Katsushika Hokusai was a Japanese ukiyo-e printmaker of the Edo period, and his Under the Wave off Kanagawa (c. 1830-1833) is a required work in AP Art History Unit 8.
The Great Wave is one print from his series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, where the sacred mountain appears in every image, often small and distant under towering natural forces.
It is a polychrome woodblock print, meaning it was mass-produced cheaply for Edo's urban merchant class, not commissioned for elites.
The print's Prussian blue pigment came from European trade, and Hokusai's prints later inspired Japonisme in Western art, making him two-way evidence for cross-cultural exchange.
The exam can show you a Hokusai print you have never seen, like the 2023 SAQ's Ejiri in Suruga Province, and expect you to attribute it using his style and the series context.
Hokusai (1760-1849) was a Japanese ukiyo-e artist of the Edo period, best known for the woodblock print series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji. The series includes Under the Wave off Kanagawa, a required work in AP Art History Unit 8.
Yes. "The Great Wave" is the popular nickname, but the AP required works list uses the title Under the Wave off Kanagawa (Kanagawa oki nami ura). Use the official title on the exam.
No, it is not a painting. It is a polychrome woodblock print made with ink and color on paper, and thousands of impressions were printed and sold cheaply. The mass-produced medium is central to how AP Art History asks about its audience and function.
Both were Edo-period ukiyo-e landscape printmakers, but Hokusai made Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji while Hiroshige made series like Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido. Only Hokusai has a work on the AP 250 required list.
Yes. Under the Wave off Kanagawa is one of the 250 required works (Topic 8.5), and the 2023 SAQ used another Hokusai print from the same series as a stimulus, so you should be able to recognize his style in unfamiliar works.