ABSTRACT
The image is, perhaps, the most iconic work of art we commonly associate with Japan. It contains a striking blue: Preuβisch Blau (or Berliner Blau), which has the idealized formula Fe7(CN)18. The colour was first manufactured in Berlin in 1706, and it is often seen as the first anorganic colour pigment that is not found in nature. It is a deeply satisfying, almost visceral, hue. The Great Wave, painted around 1831 by Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849), part of a series of woodblock prints called Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, has loomed large in the Japanese public conscience since the tsunami and earthquake at Fukushima in 2011.
