Where can I see Hokusai's Great Wave today?

What's the advantage of seeing an original piece of art over a serviceable replica? Especially in the case where the "original" is a print, one of dozens.

Obviously "serviceable" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here, a replica might simply not be very good, might not capture some vital characteristic of the thing which makes it a great work.

But otherwise, it's basically that the knowledge of how important and significant this work is puts the viewer in a more receptive frame of mind, right?

To be clear, that's not nothing. I of course know firsthand how much that affects the impact of a painting, museums and galleries care a lot about how they display their collection. But is that it?

That's mostly it. You see it and say "Wow! That's the original!"

I agree with you that replicas can be great.

Last year, I went to Otsuka museum of art[1] where they have life-size replicas of famous paintings (including the Sistine chapel), and it was great.

Before going, I was weirdly hung up about going to somewhere to see "replicas" instead of the real thing. But once I got there, I loved every second of it. All the artworks were replicated with careful detail in life size, so I felt like I wasn't missing much. In fact, I felt like I was enjoying it more! There were no crowds. I could get as close to the artworks as I wanted to. The lighting was great, since they didn't have to worry about damaging the paints. It was more engaging for the kids as they could free touch some of the replicated potteries etc.

It is a bit out of the way, but I'd highly recommend anyone going to Japan to check out that museum and maybe the onaruto bridge [2] on the way

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%8Ctsuka_Museum_of_Art

[2] https://www.japan.travel/national-parks/parks/setonaikai/see...

As you say, some works seem to lose something in any reproduction. La Giaconda (Mona Lisa) is a great example: any reproduction you may have seen in books or online hasn't captured the rainbow of background color in the original, or the sensation of viewing a living person sitting for a portrait when viewed at a few paces in the Louvre.

Humans thrive on the illusion of that reality is better than the replica even when the replica is for all intents and purposes 100 percent identical.

In fact the replica can even be enhanced. Feed it into an LLM or diffuser and produce something better. But now we call this AI slop even when the slop is superior to most of what humans can ever produce in their lifetimes.

I think the key is not to pretend you’re above it. Don’t be that idiot in the corner asking stupid questions like “why do humans listen to music it’s just patterns of sound waves that have no intrinsic meaning and why do they sing songs and communicate in complicated ways when plain English works”

Are you human? Embrace your humanity and stop pretending you’re some genius savant who’s so above it all that he can’t comprehend human nature. You know why people want to see the real thing for the same reason why a bunch of people want to go to concerts and listen to music that is objectively worse than the recording. If you understand music then you understand art. Don’t pretend you don’t.

> What's the advantage of seeing an original piece of art over a serviceable replica? Especially in the case where the "original" is a print, one of dozens.

And when you consider that "original" in woodblock prints is a Ship of Theseus thing -- over the years, prints have been made by different printers (frequently using different colors!), employed by different publishers, using blocks that have been re-carved by different craftspeople -- the "original", in any traditional sense, is only the painting made by Hokusai.

When you start diving into the world of collecting woodblock prints, you realize that "authenticity" is a subtle concept, and prices can differ by thousands of dollars (or far more) based on little more than a publisher's mark and/or the age of the paper. It's an area where encyclopedic knowledge really is required to understand exactly what you're looking at.

For example, you can easily find lots of "authentic" Hokusai prints in the <$1000 range (sometimes much lower), but these are all modern prints, done on re-carved blocks. Some of the cheapest have been done in the past 20 years.

For me it's just more fun to see the original. My museum hobby is pointless, basically, so I feel free to set myself little rules. Perhaps it makes sense to think of going to museums as a type of collection hobby. Collectors typically seek authenticity, even if it's a bit silly. A rare Magic the Gathering card is merely cardboard, but ah - it's the special cardboard! Or take birding: I can see a pileated woodpecker on YouTube any time, but to see one in person, what bliss!

I have some wool sweaters, home made by people I care about. I also have some store bought wool sweaters. By almost any measure, the store boughts are better. But I don't care about them.

If the store bought ones get destroyed or worn out I can just get a new one. The hand made ones are irreplaceable. They represent a huge personal time investment by someone who cares enough about me to do that work for me.

Art may be a little different but I reckon it's the same idea.

One of the most famous essays in the history of art criticism concerns precisely this question; this is probably the single intellectual work of the Frankfurt school for which it is remembered today, if we don't count inspiring right-wing conspiracy theories.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Work_of_Art_in_the_Age_of_...

https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/... (Zohn translation)

https://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/benjamin.pdf (Zohn translation)

https://web.archive.org/web/20220128111229/http://raumgegenz... (French, blocked)

https://web.archive.org/web/20180730163618/https://www.artec... (German)

This is probably a good time to reread it, since AI art is forcing us to revisit many of the same questions from a new perspective.

The original one is behind an extremely thick layer of glass that completely distorts the colours.

Hokusai would want you to buy one of those 100 bucks re prints and get it on your wall to see.

Countless people see replicas everyday, don't know they're replicas, and are happy about it.

Sometimes the replicas themselves are so old they become a monument on their own right, like some "Egyptian" obelisks in Rome, which are roman copies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_obelisks_in_Rome

Tangentially related, I remember that when the Sistine chapel was renovated in the 90s, people were shocked to see the vivid colors again. For decades, people had traveled far to see the original in person, when it was in fact but a shadow of itself.

It is now, but it used not to be...

That's fascinating response! Mona Lisa is, to me, _the_ example of an artwork that is actually better viewed online instead of in person.

The painting is way smaller than you expect, it's always crowded with folks who want to take selfies, it's behind so many layers of glass/plastic that distort the colors — it's really, really hard to actually have any chance to appreciate it person.

You're not winning this, there are people arguing on which of the four original Black Square paintings is better.

It's the whole experience for me. It's a bit like asking why you would go to see a movie at the cinema when you can watch it on your smart phone—it's possible but when the opportunity to see it as its meant to be seen presents itself why wouldn't you? So it's the fact that it is "an original" (though there's no such thing with woodblocks)—in this case unique in many ways compared to any other imprint of The Great Wave. Plus the curation: when I saw one at Bristol they had other Hokusai works such as manga and his other waves and fuji that were kind of precursor to The Great Wave. ps: I made the site in the OP.

> You know why people want to see the real thing for the same reason why a bunch of people want to go to concerts and listen to music that is objectively worse than the recording.

This seems like such a blatant apples and oranges comparison I'm not sure where to begin:

1. Live music is often better than studio recordings, 2. You can record memories with loved ones there that have no analogue in viewing a static piece of art, and 3. You're supporting a living artist.

People just want to view the mona lisa to because it's an easily purchasable experience widely seen to have value. Or something like that; to be honest, I don't quite grasp the psychology and visiting paris seems like it's not worth the effort.

That looks incredible and a $400M cost in 1998 it must be grand! Basically half a 1997 Amazon ;)

The Mona Lisa has been behind a thick bulletproof layer of glass since 1956.

I'm kind of surprised actually that they haven't found a better way to exhibit it in close to 70 years. But the protective layer is a big part of why it's underwhelming in person.

There is a "copy" of the Mona Lisa at the Prado in Madrid that has been restored, and there is never a crowd around it. It might have been made by Leonardo himself or one of his students, but it was probably made at the same time.

The Japanese also look at this from a different angle. A shrine that has been rebuild every few decades is still an ancient shrine to them. A reprint of an ancient block print is still an original to them.

I get confronted with the preservation of buildings quite often and have to point out now and then that the building they are trying to preserve is nowhere near the original. Through the ages we've modified those building to suit our needs. Why stop now?

It's only a matter of preserving culture with respect do or the past.