Meet the artist whose imposing wave sends chills around the world. Hokusai (1760–1849) is one of the giants of Japanese art and a legendary figure of the Edo period, who significantly influenced Western modernism. His rich work includes prints, illustrations, and paintings and is a reference point for ukiyo-e art and the Japanese style. His influence spread through Impressionism and Art Nouveau, fascinating artists such as Claude Monet, Berthe Morisot, Edgar Degas, Mary Cassatt, and Vincent Van Gogh. Hokusai was always a man in motion, changing his residence more than 90 times and using over 30 pseudonyms. In his art, he adopted the same unbridled spirit, covering the full spectrum of Japanese ukiyo-e, from landscape and actor prints to erotic books. Additionally, he created album prints, illustrations for anthologies of verses and historical novels, as well as surimono, which were private editions of special occasions. Hokusai's series of prints "Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji," published between 1830 and 1834, is the artist's most famous work. With its peak emerging through different epochs and from different angles, it marked the pinnacle of Japanese landscape. The print "The Great Wave off Kanagawa," simply known as "The Great Wave," is one of the most recognizable images of Japanese art worldwide. This introduction from TASCHEN covers the span of Hokusai's career with key works from his extensive portfolio. Through these careful, imposing works and series, we follow the diversification of Hokusai's themes, from erotic books to historical novels, and the evolution of his vibrant formalism as well as the decisive recognition of space through color and line, which would liberate Western art from the constraints of single-point perspective and unleash modernist momentum.