![]() ![]() The 5,000 prints made from the original woodblocks are now coveted treasures and have inspired many derivative works that have followed. Few works of art have communicated as forcefully the power and fury of sea as is expressed in the Great Wave. What a standard he set for himself he mused that it would take him to the age of 100 before he would be able to “make some real wonders”! Don’t mention that to the legions who have marveled at his life’s work and, in particular, the Great Wave, even if it had been created well before age 100. It took all that time for him to learn about the “true nature of things”. Hokusai famously said, prior to the age of 70, he produced no pictures of “any merit”. There is perhaps no image in Japanese art more iconic than the Great Wave. ![]() The latest creation is The Great Wave, inspired by Hokusai’s 1830 woodblock print “The Great Wave off Kanagawa”. At the benches in the Le Brassus farmhouse that has been in the Blancpain family since 1860 and is home to both the métiers d’art studio and the complicated watch workshops, artistic engraving, enameling in multiple forms (miniature painting, cloisonné and champlevé), damascening, shakudō and more, all take full flight. Working in small scale or no, in Blancpain’s métiers d’art studio the artisans see no boundaries in the techniques and motifs that they create. No similar space liberties when it comes to bestowing art upon watch dials or movement components the dimensions and boundaries are miniscule and tightly circumscribed. Christo’s medium was the full length of the Pont Neuf in Paris and miles of countryside in California for his “Running Fence”. ![]() Can there be a more challenging tableau for an artist than the microdimensions of a timepiece’s dial? After all, freeing themselves from even the dimensions of conventional large paintings or sculptures, many modernists take command of an entire room to express themselves. ![]()
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