“To Westerners, “The Great Wave” seems to be the quintessential Japanese painting, yet it’s quite un-Japanese. Traditional Japanese would have never painted fishermen (one of the lowest and most despised of Japanese classes at the time); Japanese ignored nature; they would not have used perspective; they wouldn’t have paid much attention to the subtle shading of the sky. We like the woodblock print because it is familiar to us. The Giant Wave is a Western painting, seen through Japanese eyes.