I think just a little more should have been made of William Sturgis Bigelow (1850-1926) at the MFA Boston's new exhibit of Hokusai woodblock prints and their outsized influence on the world of art. He was the one who collected most of those in the MFA's collection. They do have a 1917 charcoal sketch of him, by John Singer Sargent, in which he is wearing his medal from Japan's Order of the Rising Sun. Pictured above, "The Great Wave," of course, and, less obviously but no less brilliantly, Homer's "Breaking Wave (Prout's Neck)." They aren't side by side at the show, but they are in the same room. There is also a clever and very large rendition of "The Great Wave" made of Legos.
RSS Feed