Inspired by Hokusai's Wave: Claudel's The Wave

The Wave is a piece by Camille Claudel, one of her rare sculptures on a subject unrelated to Rodin. In it, a massive wave surges in from the left while three terrified women, on the right, try to flee from it.

Claudel drew inspiration for this work from the famous Japanese artist Hokusai. During the era when Claudel and Rodin were active, Paris was swept up in a craze for Japanese art, and many celebrated artists of the time folded the influence of Japanese painting into their own work. The piece Claudel referenced was Hokusai's Under the Wave off Kanagawa, part of his Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji series — an image virtually everyone has seen at least once.

Claudel took inspiration from the way the wave in that print seems almost to swallow Mount Fuji whole, and shaped this sculpture accordingly. The resemblance between the wave in Hokusai's print and the one Claudel carved is unmistakable. She made the wave itself from green jade and cast the fleeing figures in bronze.