‘Great Wave’ Painting Gets Immaculately Brought To Life With 50,000 LEGOs
Image via Hankyu Hanshin Properties Corp.
Katsushika Hokusai’s Great Wave off Kanagawa has crashed through the course of time. Nearly two centuries later, you’ll come across the woodblock print on folders and notebooks—and it is even the new star of Japan’s passports—but you will likely never have seen it like this.
The beloved painting is now making magnificent waves as an installation at the Hankyu Brick Museum in Osaka, Japan, revealing the nearly two-century-old masterpiece in a 3D perspective. The sculpture was crafted by Japan’s only certified professional LEGO block builder, Jumpei Mitsui, over a span of 400 hours with some 50,000 LEGO pieces.
On Twitter, Mitsui explained that in order to capture the painting’s waves accurately, he studied numerous academic papers about giant wave formations, and watched hours of footage of waves on YouTube.
He later drafted out the sculpture in a single sketch, with Mount Fuji appearing comparably small in the background:
制作にあたっては一枚だけスケッチ描きました。設計図というよりは全体のバランス確認用。
— 三井淳平 / Jumpei Mitsui (@Jumpei_Mitsui) December 11, 2020
あと、巨大波に関する論文数本読んで整合性確認したのと、YouTubeで4時間ぶっ通しで波の映像見て観察するなどしました。
子供のとき海の見える家に住んでいたので、本物の波も勿論いっぱい見てます。 pic.twitter.com/VdWGIx0ESk
Image via Jumpei Mitsui
“The powerful swell of the waves, the movement of the boat according to the waves, and Mount Fuji in the background are three-dimensionally expressed,” the museum, a celebration of Mitsui’s works, described on its website.
富嶽三十六景 神奈川沖浪裏 をレゴで立体化しました。
— 三井淳平 / Jumpei Mitsui (@Jumpei_Mitsui) December 11, 2020
長年作りたいテーマで頭の中でイメージはできていたのですが、今回ついに具現化することができました。立体なので色んなアングルから楽しめる作品になっています。
今日から大阪の阪急三番街・HANKYU BRICK MUSEUMで常設展示しています！ pic.twitter.com/fHEXvxfYDT
Images via Jumpei Mitsui
[via Spoon & Tamago, images via various sources]
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