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srean

Hokusai and Tesselations dl.ndl.go.jp

sreanop12 hours ago

Escher invoking Hokusai in his sixties

"Ideally I would spend a whole year on a freighter watching the waves. If God himself, in honour of my 60th birthday, would give me the strength and the power and the glory, now and forever, to draw a beautiful wave. But no, nothing like that. As soon as I got home I tried it, to no avail. I started spirals instead. That at least gave me something to go on. Drawing waves—those apparently shapeless, chaotic glories—is something I will have to leave to you and your (almost ex-)compatriots."

https://escherinhetpaleis.nl/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fp...

lioeters10 hours ago

Found a copy of the book on Wikimedia. It was originaly published as a pattern book for kimono textile, then rediscovered in 1986 in a collection at the Boston Museum. Since then art historians in Japan found further prints.

北斎模様画譜 (1884) - Hokusai Pattern Book - https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File%3ANDL85...

mrkpdl6 hours ago

You can download a full resolution pdf of the book at the original posts’s link, which is much better quality than the one on Wikimedia.

I used safari’s built in translate feature to translate the page from Japanese to English, scroll down for download options.

[deleted]5 hours agocollapsed

sreanop10 hours ago

Could you check the URL ? I think something broke during the copy and paste

pentaphobe10 hours ago

This seems to work

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File%3ANDL85...

masfuerte10 hours ago

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:NDL8546...

lioeters9 hours ago

Oops, I think it's fixed now. (;

sreanop8 hours ago

They seem to have reversed how Japanese books flip.

p1anecrazy11 hours ago

Is there a way for non-Japanese speakers to experience this?

omoikane11 hours ago

It's mostly pictures and not much text, except for the initial popup you see which is the usual cookie consent prompt (left button = minimum required, right button = agree to all). But looks like British Museum also has this book if you want an English interface:

https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/A_1973-0723-...

If you are asking about the text written on the pages themselves, it takes a bit more effort unless you are familiar with archaic script. I can make out some of them as guidelines on how to draw the patterns.

srik10 hours ago

There is a i18n “English” button on top right. Unless you meant something else.

sreanop11 hours ago

I used google translate.

cubefox10 hours ago